


Easier

by QuinnBee (novoselicas)



Series: Easier [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Established Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gay Disaster Keith (Voltron), Gay Keith (Voltron), Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Homophobia, Implied Lotor/Allura, M/M, Milkshakes, Pining, References to Canon, Violence, lasertag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-01-16 11:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18520252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoselicas/pseuds/QuinnBee
Summary: In which Keith is a gay, lonely mess, and Lance is a goofball just looking for a bit of understandingUniversity AU where Keith Kogane swears he wasn't going to make friends, until Lance McClain decides to throw him notes during boring lectures





	1. Lost Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter I: Lost Boy  
>  _“So what are you waiting for_  
>  _‘Cause someone could love you more_  
>  _I’m just a lost boy”_
> 
> In which Keith tries to avoid friends while Lance is doing the exact opposite

If there was anything Keith Kogane had learned during his life, it was that school was terribly hard. The fact that he was a gay & low-key emo-looking loner didn’t make it easier, and the fact that he was about to start university all alone in a new state _definitely_ didn’t make it easier.  
Yet here he was, entering the dorm building to drop his bags off. Despite his dad telling him to get a roommate, so he could be at least a bit social for once, he insisted on getting a single room. A choice he was definitely not going to regret: on his way to the building, he could already hear two girls loudly yelling at each other. Apparently one of them left the bathroom in a total mess - their words were clear and loud through the open window. Not having a roommate could maybe make this a little easier. He wasn’t good at making friends anyway. Wasn’t planning on making any, either.

According to his schedule, classes would be starting tomorrow. Keith was enrolled in mechanical engineering. It hadn’t been his first choice, but his dad absolutely insisted that he was going to study this. It had been in the family for a while now, so Keith was kind of obligated to follow the tradition, whether he wanted to or not.

His dorm room was on the 2nd floor, room number 29. The hallway wasn’t super cozy: it was long and had hard, cold lighting coming from the ceiling. The walls were white, the tapestry dark grey and the doors were made of light brown wood. Next to it were black plates with numbers & names on it: he quickly found number 29, at the end of the hallway. His name wasn’t on the plate yet, but looking at everyone else’s plates, that was something he had to do himself.

He pulled the key out of his shoulderbag and unlocked the door. The room was small, but had everything he needed: a bed, a desk, even a very small bathroom. He shoved his bags inside and closed the door again. This was gonna be it then: his own little place for the upcoming year, or longer. Maybe he wasn’t looking forward to it a 100%, but it’d be manageable.

 

After unpacking he was pretty much out of stuff to do. This must be the con of not having a roommate and being a loner as well: nothing to do all day. Today was sunday so classes only started tomorrow, which meant that studying wasn’t an option. In high school he spent a lot of time studying & doing homework - surprisingly, but true. It made him feel like he was a total nerd, something his classmates definitely agreed on when they called him names in the hallways. But at the same time he didn’t mind: it was a good way of spending time and he got good grades. That was at least one thing his dad couldn’t call him out on.

He grabbed his phone off the night stand and opened Messenger. Obviously no new messages. He decided to text Shiro - the only person in the world he’d ever consider a friend, maybe even a brother. All he knew was that he was related to his dad somehow, but neither of them had ever touched the topic any more. They almost seemed to avoid the topic. Asking about it had become pretty much useless, so he just stopped.

Shiro was 5 years older than him, but they lived in the same town and got to know eachother when Keith was 13. Keith spent more time at Shiro’s house than at his own. They lived close, so it was convenient too. Shiro was always there to help him with his homework, to listen whenever he was feeling upset,... Then, when Keith was 16, Shiro moved out of town. He had been dating Adam since his senior year of high school, so when Adam moved, Shiro joined him… Leaving Keith pretty much alone. They still kept talking online, but it just didn’t feel the same. Keith went back to feeling lonely.

However, Shiro had started working at a coffee shop, conveniently located in the same city as Keith’s new university. It was a 20 minute walk from his dorm, but his motorcycle could get him there faster.  
_'Hey, you working today?’_ he typed and sent the message. Keith got a reply in just a few minutes. _‘Yes, I’m on break for the next 20 minutes. You can come over if you need anything.’_ Another moment later, Keith was on his way to the shop.

 

***

 

The coffee shop was small and cozy. When he walked in, he recognized a new face: there was Matt, who he had seen in pictures before, but also a girl he didn’t know. Her long, curly hair was a very light grey - it contrasted with her dark brown skin. When the bell at the door rang, she turned around and greeted him with a big smile.  
No one was in line, so he immediately walked up to the counter to order. Matt was behind the register. “Hi! What can I get you today?” Keith scanned the menu. “Just a small black coffee please,” he replied.  
“Allura, small coffee!” he yelled. The white haired girl nodded as she grabbed a cup from the shelf. As Matt took Keith’s money, he looked at him again. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in the shop yet, are you new around here?”, Matt asked. “Yeah… I just started university here. I’m a friend of Shiro, so I thought I’d stop by.”  
“Oh, you must be Keith then? He mentioned you were coming over.” Keith nodded. Matt continued: “Shiro’s in the back, I’ll go get him for you.”

Keith waited at the counter for Shiro to come out, and almost ran to him when he got there. It had been ages since they saw eachother, and although Keith wouldn’t admit it, he had missed him. His only friend.  
Shiro pulled him into a short hug. “It’s good to see you again, Keith,” he said as he let go. “Let’s go sit down. I think Allura finished making your coffee.”

They sat down while Allura put the coffee down on the table. “Here you go!” she said. “Shiro, do you want me to make you anything?” She had a softened British accent, probably due to it mixing slightly with the local accent.  
“I’m fine, Allura, but thanks. My break is over in 10 minutes anyway.”  
Matt heard him, and hung over the counter. “You haven’t seen Keith in a while, right? It’s fine if you wanna take a longer break. We’ll be able to handle it with the two of us… Right, Allura?” He winked at Allura, who rolled her eyes, but smiled. “I’ll bring you a coffee as well, Shiro. The usual latte? No sugar?”  
Shiro smiled back. “Yes, perfect. Thanks.”  
Keith sipped his coffee. “So, how’s it going?”, he asked Shiro.  
“The shop has been going well. It’s why we decided to have Allura join the team, sometimes it was so busy here we couldn’t handle it with just the two of us.” He glanced around the shop: besides an elderly couple, no one else was there right now. “Especially since Matt started studying again now. He goes to your university too, actually.”  
“Wait, Matt started studying again?”  
“Yeah, astronomy. I don’t think he’s gonna want to keep up this coffee shop for forever, I guess?”  
“Oh.”  
“But don’t worry, it’s not that bad. Usually it’s nice and calm like this too.”  
Just as he said that, the door flew open. Keith heard them before even seeing them: they were _loud_ . Bye bye to the calmness.  
The first person to come in was a kid with glasses, staring intensely at their smartphone screen. They were followed by a bigger, dark skinned guy - he had black hair and an orange bandana. He seemed to be talking to the other guy behind him: he was definitely the loudest one of the bunch. Tall, tan skin, and a snapback on his brown hair. Keith took a quick sip of coffee and looked away, focussing again on what Shiro was saying. Which was hard, because 1: the two guys would _not_ shut up, and 2: if there was any way to describe the type of boy Keith generally liked, the last one would fit that description pretty well.  
“Ah, looks like my little sister decided to show up as well!” Matt yelled out when he noticed them entering.  
“Hey, Matt.” It was the kid with the glasses that replied. She put her smartphone into the pockets of her shorts. “I brought some friends,” she said, looking behind them at the other two. They were still yelling at eachother - Keith noticed they were arguing over what the best Star Wars movie was.  
“I don’t wanna interrupt, but A New Hope was clearly the best,” Matt said. The snapback guy raised his eyebrow. He opened his mouth to reply, but luckily Matt started talking again, before it’d end in an even louder discussion. “Do you guys want anything? It’s on the house.”  
“Thanks, Matt. I’ll have an, uhh... Caramel… Macchiato?” She looked at the other two guys behind her again. They were aggressively whispering at each other. “Yo, Hunk, Lance, if you could stop talking about Star Wars and actually look at the menu to order something that’d be sweet.”  
They stopped rambling and scanned the menu. Bandana guy answered first - he just ordered a chocolate milk. Snapback got a cappucino. “Allura, medium caramel macchiato, chocolate milk and cappucino please!”  
“I’ll get right to it!” she yelled back, still smiling.  
Snapback guy glanced at the glasses kid. “Well Pidge, if you told me there was a girl this pretty at your brother’s coffee shop, I’d have stopped by _way_ earlier.” He looked back at Allura, who seemed to be ignoring the comment - too caught up in making the coffees, or on purpose. Matt was glaring at him viciously. Keith sighed. His type always seemed to be the straight guy; not that he had any chance at all, anyway.  
Bandana guy rolled his eyes. “Typical Lance move.”  
He had been so caught up in following what they were saying, that he completely forgot to listen to Shiro’s story. It wasn’t until he waved a hand in front of Keith’s face, that he realized. “Hey. Keith.”  
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” Keith said, and sipped from his coffee again. Shiro continued talking about the one time a couple of cats got into the back room. It was an amusing story, but Keith kept getting distracted. The trio had sat down in the booth next to them with their drinks, and they were _still_ yelling about Star Wars. At least he got their names now - glasses kid was called Pidge, bandana guy was called Hunk, and snapback dude was called Lance. If Keith got bored, at least he could try looking them all up on Facebook now. There probably wouldn’t be anything else to do all night.

 

After 15 minutes, Shiro finished his coffee and stood up again. “Guess I’ll get to work again. When do your classes start?”“Tomorrow,” Keith replied, also finishing his own coffee and getting up.  
“Well, good luck, I suppose?” Shiro smiled. “And feel free to pass by here any time.”  
“I will. See you later, Shiro.”  
Shiro got to work, Matt and Allura said goodbye, Keith glanced at Lance once more, and then left on his motorcycle.

 

***

 

Keith found them on Facebook and apparently they went to the same university as him. This would be fun.

With a bit of luck however, they wouldn’t be in the same classes as him. If the yelling from the coffee shop was a habit of theirs, he’d lose all his shots at being able to focus.

 

***

 

As it turns out, Keith is not very lucky.

He was 20 minutes early at his first lecture, and 15 minutes later he saw Hunk and Lance walk in. To top it all of, they sat right behind him. This auditorium was big and they sat _right behind him._ This time they weren’t arguing about the best Star Wars movie anymore, but about their favorite movie taglines.  
“I’m telling you, _the hunter becomes the hunted._ It’s in like six of my favorite movies, and if that doesn’t mean anything, I don’t know what to tell you.”  
God. Did these two talk about anything else besides movies? Also, _what kind of a dumb tagline was ‘the hunter becomes the hunted’?_ Keith couldn’t even begin to imagine one good movie that had this tagline, and assumed Lance just had a shitty taste in movies.

 

The lecture started 10 minutes later. Luckily, Keith had overheard Hunk saying that he wanted to pay attention to what the lecturer would say - so maybe he’d be able to follow this class anyway.  
Again, it turns out that Keith is not very lucky. Another 15 minutes later, Keith saw a piece of paper fall down onto his table, right on top of his notebook. It was folded into a small square, but the bright blue letters on the outside read ‘open me’. So he opened it. In the same bright blue pen, it read:

> ‘hi im right above/behind you and im bored’

Keith turned around and saw Lance looking to the left, while tapping a bright blue pen against his desk. What the fuck.  
He ignored it, but a minute later, another folded up piece of paper fell down again.

> ‘didnt i see you at the coffee shop yesterday???’

Keith sighed and put this note aside as well. Another minute later, another little note.

> ‘sorry if that sounded creepy but i recognize your mullet lmao’

He felt a little flutter in his chest. He was glad that Lance was behind him, because a small blush started to creep up his cheeks. _Lance noticed him;_ even enough to remember what he looked like and to recognize him. He seemed so caught up in his silly debates, yet he still noticed Keith? Keith wasn’t used to getting noticed. He was used to being alone, to people leaving him or simply looking over him. They walked by without talking to him or without ever remembering him.

Another one fell down.

> ‘dont ignore me plssss’

Keith pushed the uneasy feeling in his chest aside, sighed again and decided to just reply, so that maybe it’d stop. He didn’t want this.  
He felt conflicted. He was glad that he wasn’t ignored once again in the first place, or that people talked to him without mocking or bullying him. But he still didn’t trust it. He had been let down by ‘nice’ people so many times. They’d hang out with him for a while, before deciding that Keith wasn’t interesting or funny enough, so they left him. It had happened often and it was why he wasn’t planning on making friends. Eventually he started avoiding everyone and he became untrusting. Instead of accepting people into his life, he pushed them away, before they rejected him.  
Yet here he was. He ripped a tiny piece out of the back of his notebook, and got out his red pen. 

> ‘Yeah, I was there. A friend of mine works at the coffee shop.’

He folded the note up, and held it up next to his head without looking. After 3 seconds, Lance noticed and pulled the paper strip out of his hand. It didn’t take long before Lance’s reply landed on Keith’s desk.

> ‘your friend doesnt happen to be the white haired girl right???? she wouldnt give me her number so maybe if youve got it you can give it to me, help a guy out ;)’

Keith sighed, wrote his reply, and passed it up again.

> ‘I don’t have it so I was gonna say ‘sorry to disappoint you’, but it looks like she already did that.’
> 
> ‘ouch  
>  im lance btw’

Keith almost wrote ‘ _I know’._

> ‘I’m Keith.’
> 
> ‘is it just me or is this lecture boring as shit’
> 
> ‘It’s pretty ok I guess. Maybe if you’d actually pay attention, you’d realize it’s quite ok.’
> 
> ‘i mean youre also not paying lots of attention rn soooo’
> 
> ‘Thats fair’

Keith didn’t get any more notes after that - his strategy seemed to have worked. Maybe he could actually get something out of this class now.

 

The lecture ended and Keith rushed to his dorm for lunch. He had an afternoon class too, but still enough time between the two to make himself some food. Yesterday, after going to the coffee shop, he managed to stop by a supermarket.  
His dad sent him money. He said he would do so monthly. Keith didn’t believe him and bought the cheapest food possible: instant noodles may not be the healthiest choice, but it was better than ending up broke very quickly.  
He had known that eating noodles on the daily was a very likely possibility, so he had taken the kettle from his house all the way here. As he was pouring the boiling water in his noodle cup, he heard his phone buzz. He put his noodle cup and some chopsticks on the table, sat down, and while he waited for the noodles to be ready, he checked his phone. It was a Facebook friend request.  
_Lance McClain._ _  
_ Keith hadn’t been the only one doing some stalking apparently. He frowned. Why did Lance bother looking him up on Facebook, even going as far as sending a friend request? All they had was a short conversation, technically they hadn’t even spoken yet as it all went through dumb, little notes.

He slurped his noodles while deciding if he should accept it or not. He was anxiously stirring them around, tapping his chopsticks on the table, shoving a whole bunch noodles in his mouth. Was this really something worth stressing about? It was just a friendship request, not a marriage proposal or anything. Just a nice person studying the same thing at university as him, trying to be friends. That wasn’t too bad right? Should he try making friends?

Was Lance even trying to be his friend? What if he didn’t even wanna do that, what if he was just sending a friend request simply because he thought ‘hey, why not, I know this guy right’? He should stop assuming people wanted to be his friend. He was a loner.

_Why was he getting this worked up over a simple friend request?_

He decided to simply ignore it. Like he told himself before - it wasn’t his intention to make friends. He was gonna do what he always did, just pushing people away, before he started thinking too much about it.

But then he almost choked on a noodle when he accidentally pressed “accept” on Lance’s friend request while trying to swipe away from the tab.  
Well, that was his decision made. Forcefully. He convinced himself that it wasn’t a big deal. Really, it wasn’t, despite him worrying about it for over 15 minutes. It was just a friend request.

 

In the afternoon class, Keith made sure to be early again like last time. Lance came in with Hunk 5 minutes later. He already managed to recognize Lance’s voice, yelling just behind the door.  He couldn’t quite hear what he was talking about, but it seemed to be something food-related. Hunk shut him up when they entered, and they sat down right behind him again.

It took a little longer than last time before a piece of paper fell onto his desk again. It had given Keith plenty of time to think, but he still didn’t know what to do. Lance was probably assuming he’s okay with becoming his friend, and although Keith didn’t know if he actually wanted to, he just went with it.

> ‘so. opinion on pineapple on pizza?? because idk if youve heard but hunk here thinks its acceptable and i have to prove him WRONG’

Keith raised his eyebrows. As it turned out they did talk about things other than movies, but when they did, their topics still seemed to be so irrelevant. Pineapple on pizza? Really?

> ‘I don’t think I have an opinion in? I wouldn’t eat it myself but I don’t really care’

He hears Lance whisper to Hunk about it, just loud enough for Keith to hear. “You see! He _wouldn’t eat it himself._ That means he’s on my side with this.” Hunk just chuckled.  
Keith couldn’t keep himself from smiling just a tiny bit.

 

***

 

The notes continue, lecture after lecture. Keith missed a lot of the classes because of this. He was there, he tried to take notes, but all he ended up doing was wait until a strip of paper tumbled down on top of those notes.  
He had to admit - he was kinda liking it. Lance was pretty fun to talk to - through the notes at least. They hadn’t said a word to eachother in real life. They passed eachother in the hallways, ran into each other at the coffee shop (where Lance and Hunk were pretty much always yelling to eachother about something), but didn’t say anything. They only talked through tiny, folded up pieces of paper.

They talked about how boring the lectures are. In the rare occasions where they did decide to pay attention, they explained eachother stuff that they didn’t understand from the lecturer.  
They talked about movies and shows. Lance scolded Keith because he had never seen Star Wars. Keith scolded Lance because he didn’t like Buzzfeed Unsolved. They talked about the things they did like - they were both big fans of Marvel movies. That was as far as their agreement went - Keiths favorite hero was Deadpool, while Lance refused to admit any hero was better than Spiderman.  
Lance’s life seemed to be pretty eventful and he could make a conversation topic out of anything. He worked at a small restaurant on wednesdays and during the weekends. After a while Keith was prepared for work stories during the lectures on mondays and thursdays. About obnoxious clients, funny clients, rude clients. About his hilarious boss, with his funny accent and huge orange moustache. That one time someone brought their cat into the restaurant, or when his coworker spilled mayonnaise all over him, or when he accidentally locked himself into the walk-in freezer.  
Lance talked about his family often - he mentioned little things that reminded him of his siblings, more crazy stories, the amazing dishes his mom or grandma made every Christmas.  
Lance shared random facts that Pidge or Hunk told him . In just a couple of weeks, Keith now knew how long a day lasts on Pluto (6 days and 9 hours), how many bones the skeleton of a horse has (206), and the name for the fear of Friday the 13th (triskaidekaphobia).

  
Keith read all the notes and replied, but one day he realized he never had anything to talk about himself. He realized how much more interesting Lance’s life really was. Keith was an only child without a mom who had stayed home alone most of his life. He didn’t feel like he had anything to tell. So he listened. And he was fine with it.

 

Until one day, Lance asks him why in a lecture on monday morning.

> ‘dont have any work stories today sorry! dont you have anything to tell?’

He had poorly attempted to draw the eyes emoji next to it.  
Keith sighs and writes his reply.

> ‘I don’t think so.’
> 
> ‘why not?’

He didn’t exactly feel like telling Lance the truth: that he was a loner, and all he did was stay in his dorm or go visit Shiro, either in his apartment or at the coffee shop. So he just drew a shrugging emoji on the note and passed it up to Lance.  
Lance stopped throwing notes for the rest of the lecture. He didn’t even pass any notes during the afternoon class. Keith was able to pay attention again, but his worries started growing, and they were peaking around the time he got to his dorm room again. Going even one lecture without Lance’s dumb notes felt weird. Even if they didn’t pass notes back and forth continuously, they’d pass each other at least a few… But this had been an entire lecture with no notes, after Keith ended their previous conversation with a stupid shrugging emoji. Lance must’ve thought that Keith was just not interested in talking. That he had just been listening to Lance’s rambling against his will, without any intention of talking back. The written equivalent of a conversation where one person is just rambling and rambling, while the other person just nods to end the other person’s talking as soon as possible.

Keith knew it had been a bad idea. He just proved himself to be bad at making friends, causing him to be dropped again. He knew this would happen, yet he still thought it’d work out this one time? It shouldn’t have been unexpected for him, yet Keith took it that way. Wasn’t it even his initial plan to not befriend Lance? To not even try? Keith must’ve discarded the plan without realizing one day - he had genuinely enjoyed Lance’s funny little notes. He wouldn’t say he missed them, but he had gotten so used to them that it felt weird to not have them there. Even if it was just one lecture.  
God, it had been just one lecture without them and Keith was already getting anxious about it. It was just like with the friend request - he was overanalyzing it and it was dumb, really. It was one, tiny, stupid thing again. Overthinking it was unusual for him, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling. Keith had been left behind again, rejected, denied. Like always.

 

***

 

Keith didn’t get any notes on tuesday either and had accepted that he’d be friendless all year.

  
  
**  
  
He had started coming later on purpose. Lance and Hunk were always there on their usual time, at their usual places (one of the last rows, in the middle) - so he sat all the way in the front, at the edge, close to the door. He decided to just stay far back, to go back to how it always was: pushing people away. From now on before they could reject him, and not after.

 

Keith had been looking forward to being able to take decent notes, but his mind kept wandering to his worries and anxiety. Focussing was hard with a mind that reminded you of everything you ever did wrong. This little note disaster was just one thing to add to the list.  
One time he punched a kid in the face because he made a joke about his mom being gone.  
He had sprinted away in terror after someone had asked him out on a date.  
He got locked up in a bathroom stall after eating his lunch alone there and the next day everyone knew about it.  
He got tripped by someone in the hallway while holding a can of soda, and threw it all over one of the popular girls.  
He had thrown his pen to the front of the classroom and then ran out of there, after a teacher made fun of him in class for answering a question wrong. (It got him a week of detention.)  
He realized those were all stories to tell. He wasn’t unable to tell stories - a lot happened in his life. He just didn’t want to share them, because the majority of things that had ever happened to Keith, was him messing up. It took him all lecture to figure out what he’d reply to Lance, if he could. Why he didn’t have anything to tell.

He almost didn’t even notice the lecture ending. He took his backpack and started to throw his stuff in, when he noticed an arm in a brown jacket dropping something on his table. He was caught off guard, but he was just fast enough to see him slip through the door, and to recognize the blue letters on the little note in front of him.

> ‘if im not gonna get anything out of you through these notes, why dont you just sit with us during lunch? we’ll be in the cafeteria :)’

 

***

Keith had never been in the cafeteria.  
He had contemplated just eating noodles in his dorm again like every day, but there was something about Lance and his request to join them that just made him want to go. Although he cursed Lance for waiting so long to leave him a note again, it didn’t matter anymore. Keith felt welcome and invited, yet still a bit nervous. What if Keith would mess up and say something weird? What if they’d end up leaving him too, like everyone else before? He was running through all possible doom scenarios while filling up his lunch tray, and came up with even more while scanning the cafeteria for Lance’s face. Keith assumed that he’d be with Hunk and Pidge, so he searched for Hunks orange bandana or Pidges glasses as well. As expected however, he heard them before he saw them, despite the noise in the cafeteria. It was undoubtedly Lance.  
“Oh my god Pidge, please don’t tell me you like pineapple on pizza too. I don’t think I can hang with you two anymore!” He was still talking about the pineapple on pizza thing?  
Keith realized he still had a chance to run away and not have to socialize. Until Lance looked straight at him and beckoned him to come closer. “Oh! Keith!” He grinned and looked at Hunk and Pidge, who were sitting right across of him. “You’re just in time, really. You see, Pidge, Keith told me a while back that he wouldn’t eat pineapple on pizza himself. So that clearly means that he doesn’t like it.”  
Keith raised his eyebrows, still standing awkwardly at the edge of the table. Lance gestured to the seat next to him. “Are you gonna keep standing there or are you gonna join us?” he asked. Keith quickly put his tray onto the table and sat down.  
Pidge adjusted her glasses. “So you’re on Lance’s side with the pineapple on pizza thing, huh.”  
“Oh. Uhm, I’m actually pretty neutral on the subject, I think,” he replied with a little smile on his face. He started peeling the orange he grabbed.  
“But you wouldn’t eat it?” Hunk asked.  
“Probably not.”  
“And that proves he’s on my side. I told you before, Hunk, if you’re pro pineapple-on-pizza, you’d eat it,” Lance replied proudly. “Right?” he asked, turning to Keith.  
“If it makes you feel better, sure,” Keith replied with a little grin on his face, before biting into a piece of his orange. Lance chuckled.

They ate their lunches and Keith was mostly quiet - he only talked whenever they asked him something. Keith enjoyed just listening to them, though. Pidge was good at making sassy remarks to dumb stuff Lance said, Hunk was very kind and down to earth, and Lance was just… Lance.

 

After everyone had finished eating and talking, Pidge got up. “I’d better leave now, I have some programming to do.”  
“As always,” Hunk added. “I guess I’ll leave too, I still need to make those physics exercises. Pidge, are you going to the library?” She nodded.

“Alright, I’m coming with you then. See you later, Lance!” Hunk said while waving. “You too… Keith?” Keith smiled and nodded, glad that someone remembered his name. They ran off, leaving Keith and Lance alone at the table.

“I still have to do those physics exercises too,” Lance grunted. “And I don’t even understand what we have to do.”  
Keith had already done the exercises. Option 1: Keith told him that physics were hard indeed, and that he was also suffering with the exercises. Or, option 2...  
“I’ve already made them so, uh… I could explain you how I did them, if you’d like me to.” _What had he gotten himself into._

“Oh, that’d be… Nice, actually,” Lance replied with a little smile on his face. “Where do we go?”

“Well, the library isn’t really an option since you can’t talk in there, so…” Was it too much too invite Lance to his dorm room already? They had technically only just met that day and weren’t very familiar yet. Sure, they had written notes already, but was that really enough? Keith wasn’t exactly the type of person to let people in easily - literally and figuratively. But he couldn’t think of any other place to go, and he had already proposed to help Lance, so there was no turning back “I have a dorm room just for myself. We can go there, if you want to.”

“You have a dorm room to yourself?!” Lance replied, just a little too loud. Keith knew that not having a roommate was unusual and he didn’t need everyone in the cafeteria to know how much of a loner he was.

“Shh, yeah yeah. We can also go somewhere else if you’d prefer that-”

“Oh, no, your dorm is fine. I’ll go get my stuffin my dorm first.”

 

Too coincidentally, Lance also happened to have his dorm on the second floor. Room number 21 - same hallway as Keith’s - except Lance's dorm was at the very beginning. When looking at the nameplate, Keith discovered that Lance shared his dorm with Hunk.    
“You can come in if you want to. Hopefully it won’t take me to long to find my exercises, though.” Lance said, while grabbing the key from his pocket.

“Oh, it’s fine. I’ll wait outside,” Keith replied. Lance nodded and entered the room, while Keith turned around to rest his back against the wall. He checked his phone, but he had no messages (as usual), so he just looked around the hall for a little bit. He noticed that the nameplate on the other side of the hallway, for room 22, said ‘Katie & Matt Holt’. Next to ‘Katie’, someone wrote ‘Pidge’ in tiny, green letters, accompanied by a small drawing of a bird. So Matt shared a dorm with his sister? Who was, apparently, called Katie? Keith got confused, but before he could think about it any more, Lance came out of the room again. “Sorry that it took a while… I got them.” he said.

“It’s okay. Uh.. My dorm’s at number 29. I’m not too far away from you, apparently,” Keith replied, before turning around to get to his dorm at the end of the hallway. He grabbed the key from his pocket and put it into the lock in one smooth movement. The door unlocked with a click and Keith stepped forward, holding it open so Lance could get in. Keith only just realized the state his room was in - a big, big, embarrassing mess. He felt less cool shoving his dirty clothes to the side. He felt even worse when he remembered that he only had one desk chair. God, this was a disaster already. _What. Had. He. Gotten. Himself. Into?_ _  
_ “We’re gonna have to sit on my bed, uh, I only have one chair. Sorry.” Keith mumbled as he grabbed his physics folder from his desk.

“Oh, so you’re already inviting me into your bed on my first time here? That’s a bit quick, isn’t it?” Lance said while grinning.

“You can also sit on the floor if you’d prefer that,” Keith replied, eyebrows raised and a grin on his face as well. Joking around seemed like a good way to hide the _intense stress Lance’s dumb little remark gave him._ Was he flirting? Was he joking? Keith was in a gay panic, and hid it by looking for the exercises in his folder.  
“Anyway. The exercises about magnetism, right?” Keith asked, pulling the sheets out of his folder. Lance had sit himself down next to Keith and nodded, while he grabbed his supplies as well. The class about magnetism was yesterday, so Keith had been able to pay attention as the notes weren’t there to distract him. On top of that, he had already learned about it in high school and he had always been pretty good at physics. Explaining it to Lance shouldn’t be too hard.

 

“Alright, I understand. Man, you really are better at explaining this than Hunk,” Lance sighed. Keith raised his eyebrows. “Hunk is good at physics, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the thing! He’s so good at it that it all seems easy to him… So when he explains it, I don’t understand anything of what he’s saying. When I ask him to explain it in an easier way, he just says he doesn’t know how to.” Keith nodded. He understood what Lance meant, he had been there too when he asked Shiro for help. “Pidge is just the same too, but she studies computer engineering so I can’t exactly ask her about physics. All she’s good at is calculus and robotics... I already understand most of calculus and I don’t care as much about robots as her and Hunk.”

“The robotics part doesn’t surprise me. I don’t wanna know how often they mentioned robots earlier and lunch,” Keith said. “Also I’m terrible at calculus, so help in return for this is always appreciated.”

“I’ll remember that,” Lance replied, smiling. “And god, their robotics rambling is terrible, isn’t it? It wasn’t even that bad this lunch. Usually all they do is ramble about it to eachother. Pidge talks about the coding and Hunk does the engineering. I mean, it’s cool but,...” Lance paused and stared at his hands. He was picking at his nails nervously. Keith tilted his head, waiting for a response. Lance just stood up and grabbed his stuff.

“But…” Keith tried. He stood up as well.

“It’s just that… I don’t know. I feel so dumb when I’m with them sometimes. I have no idea what either of them say, most of the time.” Lance shook his head. “Why am I even telling you this? Sorry, I should probably go now.”

“No, uh, it’s fine,” Keith said, a worried look on his face. He’d propose to sit with them again at  lunch, but didn’t. It’d probably sound awkward, and Keith still didn’t trust his friend-making-skills. Lance was venting to him and he was just standing around awkwardly, unsure of what to say. He felt bad for Lance and he understood how he felt, yet Keith just didn’t think he’d be fit to be his friend. On top of that, the anxiety that he'd leave him eventually stayed present. Or that he was just using Keith to make himself feel better - an extra so he wouldn't feel alone next to Pidge and Hunk, an extra to help him with classes he didn't understand. Lance didn't seem like that kind or person, but what if...? It wouldn't have been the first time it happened to Keith. It was why he didn't make friends.  
Lance smiled. “Anyway, thank you for helping me with the exercises, Keith. I’ll see you in class tomorrow?”

Yet here he was. Making friends.

“Yep. See you tomorrow,” Keith replied. He waved at Lance as he turned around and stepped out the door. Keith flopped down on his bed as soon as Lance left. He was worried, anxious, and unsure. At least Lance had said 'see you tomorrow'... Did that imply he was looking forward to his company again? Was Keith looking forward to it? Was he really just gonna make friends, something he said he wouldn't do?  
  
After a solid half hour of overthinking and almost stress eating an entire bag of m&m's, he did some more homework to feel productive again. Just sitting around uselessly and anxiously weren’t exactly his favorite things to do. Usually he felt best when he was alone, no one to bother him or make him feel terrible, but when he started overthinking, it only got worse. At least homework could take his mind off things.  
  
He was so caught up in working, that he didn't realize how late it was until his stomach started growling. He had eaten earlier than usual too: he didn't have the habit of eating as soon as class was over, but as Lance had invited him right after class, he had to. He didn't feel like cooking himself noodles again and the cafeteria's food wasn't amazing, so he decided to explore the town. Back to his trusty little motorcycle.  
He left her at a random parking he drove past, after deciding to walk around by foot. He passed countless tearooms and restaurants that looked to expensive for someone like him, until passing by a small building that looked like a typical student restaurant. The building had big glass windows all over; Keith could see groups of teenagers and twenty-somethings at square tables, eating, drinking and talking. Orange letters on the door spelled out the name of the restaurant: "Coran's Tavern". It looked okay for a quick evening snack. He stepped inside - a guy with a big orange moustache and a New Zealand accent greeted him. "Good evening!"  
Wait.  
Orange moustache. Hadn't he heard of that before? Not a lot of people had a moustache like the one this man had. And Keith was sure that someone had told him about it.  
He was slowly starting to realize where he was, but it wasn't until a tall, tan guy with messy brown hair popped up behind the counter holding a bunch of soda bottles, that it hit him.  
"Oh! Hey, Keith!"

Out of all places… “Hey, Lance,” he replied. The moustache guy joined Lance behind the counter. “Ah, this a friend of yours, Lance?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. We study the same thing in school. Mechanical engineering.”  
_Friend._ Lance called him his friend.  
“Lance must’ve told you about Coran’s Tavern then!” The guy curled the end of his moustache with his finger. “I’m Coran, nice to meet ya.”

“I’m Keith,” he answered, realizing too late that Lance already yelled his name and Coran must’ve heard. “I did hear a lot of stories already, yeah.”

Lance looked up from the drinks he was pouring. “Actually, I never mentioned the name. Keith found this himself somehow,” he said with a smirk on his face. Keith started blushing and he felt like a stalker. “I just found it while walking around town, I guess,” he mumbled.

“You should’ve done some self advertising, Lance!” Coran said and he grinned. “Anyway, go sit down, Keith, we’ve been holding you up for too long!”  
Keith was having serious regrets about going here because he had not been in the mood to socialize at all. He sat down and hoped they’d leave him alone for the rest of his meal.

 

He wasn’t left alone. He was halfway through his grilled cheese sandwich when Lance asked if he could sit with him. Lance had a sandwich with him too - it wasn’t busy, Lance was hungry and Coran had said it was okay. Keith still didn’t feel like talking, but at least he could blame his silence on the fact that he was eating. Today had been so much more eventful than Keith’s usual day and it was making it overwhelmed. He went from being anxious about Lance’s notes, to sitting with Lance at the cafeteria, to have Lance _in his dorm_ , and now he couldn’t even eat alone, because Lance was here. He was in need of alone time but something clearly wasn’t allowing it. Was this the universe telling him that he had to stop being a moody, antisocial asshole?  
His thinking was interrupted by - _of course_ \- Lance. “Funny how you found this place by yourself, huh?” he said in between two bites.

“Yeah. First place I ran into here that looked affordable, really,” Keith took a sip from his drink. “Surprised me that you hadn’t even told me about it.”

“I think I just forgot, to be honest,” Lance said while shrugging and biting into his sandwich again, just as Keith finished his. “Alright, I should probably go. I still have to finish some stuff I was working on.”

“Oh.” Lance put his sandwich down. “Physics?”

Keith just felt like finally being alone for the rest of the evening and was gonna watch Stranger Things til he fell asleep, but… “Yeah.”

“Alright. See you tomorrow,” Lance said. The smile slowly faded from his face as he looked down a this sandwich again.

“See you tomorrow,” Keith replied. He paid at the counter, stepped out of the building and realized too late that he was acting like a moody, antisocial asshole.  
No matter what the universe was trying to teach him, he’d probably be terrible at making friends for the rest of his life.  
  
***  
  
Keith could get back to his habit of coming to the auditorium 20 minutes before the lecture started, now that he didn’t have to be just in time anymore, to avoid sitting close to Lance and Hunk. They arrived at their usual moment too, 15 minutes before it started. Keith noticed Lance scanning the auditorium, blue eyes slightly squinted, probably looking for Keith. Maybe he should wave. But what if they weren’t looking for him? Lance had said ‘see you tomorrow’, but maybe after Keith’s antisocial behavior from yesterday, he had decided to just leave him? Find better friends, sit with other friends, friends who didn’t leave you after a 5 minute conversation during dinner?  
Keith’s eyes met Lance’s and Lance smiled. Keith felt the tension escape his body as his anxious thoughts stopped for a second.  
A moment later, Lance sat himself down next to Keith, with Hunk following right behind. “Good morning!” Lance said, cheerily, as if nothing had happened yesterday. Keith was thankful.

“Good morning,” Keith replied with a soft smile.

“Got those exercises done?” Lance asked.

Keith had actually finished the remaining exercises last evening instead of just binging Netflix because he felt bad about lying. “Yeah, I finished them all, actually.”

“God, I wish that were me.”

 

Contrary to his expectations, Keith was able to pay attention a lot better the following lectures, despite Lance sitting next to him the entire time instead of behind him. They didn’t need their notes anymore: if they wanted to talk, they could just _talk_ , instead of having to pass pieces of paper the entire time.

Keith was even starting to enjoy lunch breaks. Most of the time, that was. Keith skipped sitting with Lance, Pidge and Hunk sometimes to just eat noodles in his dorm, when he was in need of alone time or short on money. Cafeteria food wasn’t that expensive, but he still had his huge noodle stash in his closet that’d go to waste otherwise.

The problem was that he didn’t feel like straight up telling them that he simply wanted to be alone. Sure, they were getting closer and they were more than strangers, more than acquaintances. He could even call them friends, but they weren’t close enough yet for Keith to talk about how anxious he got at time. Keith realized it was a terrible idea, but the first time he felt like going away he just lied, making an excuse about wanting to study. It was a small thing, but then he kept doing it. He said he had to meet up with Shiro, or that he had to clean his dorm, or call his dad (something he’d rather not), or anything else that worked. By the time he realized that he shouldn’t be lying about it, it was already too late to admit the real reason for him leaving at times. The more excuses he had to make, the more it hit him that once again, he was being an antisocial asshole.

***

He should have expected that that’d go wrong one day.

A lecture got cancelled a few days beforehand, so they were free all afternoon that day. “Hey, Pidge wants to go to the sandwichbar in town today, do you want to come too?” Lance asked him as he was packing up his folders.  
“Oh, uhm…” Keith already didn’t feel like eating together today and he certainly didn’t feel like going all the way to town. “I can’t, my dad wants to go somewhere with me. We’re getting lunch and after that we’re going out to buy new stuff for my dorm. I don’t think I can get out of it this time, he’s been asking for a while and I really need it.” He wished it was true, because it wasn’t a lie that he was in need of new stuff. One of the table legs on his desk had broken; the material was poorly held together with multiple pieces of duct tape. He had thrown his calculus book across the room in frustration, and it just happened to hit the table who was already showing signs of aging.

“Alright. See you tomorrow!”

 

Keith found out later that the sandwich bar had been closed, so they had returned to Lance’s dorm with a bunch of snacks they bought in the supermarket. And they returned right at the moment where Keith decided to go to the vending machine on the ground floor.

He spotted them at the beginning of the hall, each carrying a bag. He wanted to turn around to go back to his dorm before they could see him, but it was too late: out of all three of them, _of course_ Lance noticed him standing at the end of the hall first, frozen and mildly panicked.

Keith quickly ran into his dorm, realized too late that the running away had probably made him seem even more suspicious, and forgot to fully close the door in a growing panic. He heard footsteps down the hall and hoped it wasn’t Lance coming his way. Unfortunately, it was in fact Lance who swung his door wide open, the look on his face making Keith realize that he fucked up.  
“I thought you couldn’t get out of it? We’ve been gone for just under an hour, you’re not telling me that you went out to get lunch _and_ buy new stuff in an hour.” Lance said. He didn’t sound mad… Just disappointed, almost. Keith couldn’t reply - he was just standing there, right in front of Lance, frozen again. He noticed Lance’s gaze shift to the ducttaped table leg. “How did you even get a table leg to break? Man, even if you did go, it doesn’t look like you got the stuff you needed.”

“I’m sorry, I-”

“Were you lying about it?”

Keith nodded anxiously. “I just… Wanted to be alone.”

“Wait…” Lance frowned. “Please don’t tell me you’ve done this before. All those times you didn’t eat with us.”

Keith stared at his feet. He couldn’t manage to nod again.

“I don’t get you sometimes, Keith. Half of the time you’re really nice to be with, but the other half you barely talk? And now apparently, you even lie just because you don’t wanna sit with us.”

“I just don’t feel like talking all the time. I didn’t feel like just telling you that.”

“Why couldn’t you just tell us? We’re friends, right?”

Keith was driving his nails into his skin hand and felt the sweat build up inside his leather gloves. “I just didn’t feel like saying I wanted to be alone, okay?” It came out a little louder than Keith intended. Keith didn’t wanna get mad, but he could feel it happening.

“Seriously?”

“I haven’t even known you that long. Don’t expect me to immediately tell you everything.” He didn’t know _why_ he was getting so angry, but it was happening and it was getting too late to stop.

“Then don’t expect me to not be disappointed. I thought we were friends, you didn’t have to lie and make all of those dumb excuses!”

“If you're that disappointed, just leave me alone!”

“Fine!” Lance turned around and slammed the door.

Keith felt like breaking another table leg.

 

***

 

Keith sat alone at lectures for the next couple of days. It felt different than before; it left a bad feeling in his stomach. Last time he sat alone for a few days, he barely knew Lance. They had just thrown each other some notes.

Now, Keith felt like they _knew_ eachother. They had been in each other’s dorms, they had sat together at lunch and in lectures, they had talked about their favorite food and their favorite movies and concerts they’d like to attend one day. It was just small talk, though. Lance had talked to him about how he felt dumb next to Hunk and Pidge a few times, but that was about as deep as their conversations went. Was it really enough to consider them friends?  
Then he remembered Lance had literally said they were friends when they were argueing. He had said it in the past tense, painfully making Keith aware of the fact they were probably no longer friends at this point.  
Oh well, that was to be expected. Not making friends had been the plan since the beginning, anyway; maybe Keith should see it as a good thing that he didn’t have to worry about anyone anymore. He could just do what he want, not have to worry about wanting to be alone or anything else.  
But he’d also have no one to talk to anymore, or to explain him stuff he didn’t understand. He had thrown his calculus book against the table because he was absolutely stuck on this one chapter - he’d have to figure it out himself now.

Then he also remembered that Lance was good at calculus, and despite being a little too loud sometimes, he was also good at talking to Keith. He knew how to keep the conversation going and it made Keith feel nice. Even if he sat as far away from Lance as possible, right next to the door so he could leave quickly, it was impossible to avoid him with his loud voice and even louder laugh. Keith being gone didn’t seem to affect him at all; he was still having the same amount of fun with Hunk.

Maybe he missed not being alone a little bit.

 

***

 

The week was ending and Keith concluded that this was his worst week _ever._ He had been in a terrible mood and you could see it in his dorm. Dirty laundry and half finished homework were scattered around the room, his table leg had broken more after he kicked it in frustration, his laptop was the only thing on the bed. He had been watching Netflix all week instead of homework, because he couldn’t get himself to focus on studying anymore. He should be doing calculus, but that was definitely something he didn’t feel like at that moment.  
Keith himself looked equally terrible - he had huge dark circles under his eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping a lot; he only fell asleep after an hour of thinking and worrying and getting frustrated. The lack of sleep of course didn’t help him from feeling less moody. So yes, this week had been terrible.

His phone buzzed on his desk and he got up to grab it. It was a text from Shiro. He was gonna ignore it just like all of the other texts he had received this week, until he read it.  
_‘Hey, I’ve been worried about you, Keith. You haven’t responded to any of my texts. Come visit the coffee shop today, maybe?’_

The last thing he felt like doing was going out to town, but maybe he should go say hi to Shiro. Even if he looked like a total mess. Besides, he could use the caffeine as well.

 _‘I’m sorry. It’s been busy,’_ Keith typed. At least he could blame his dark circles on that, without having to explain their real cause. He typed a second text right after. _‘I’ll come over right now.’_  
_‘Anything I can make for you already?’_  
_‘The usual.’_  
_‘Black coffee again? Whatever, I’ll treat you to a surprise coffee. See you in 10.’_  
He was happy to still have Shiro. At least that was one friend he wouldn’t risk losing anytime soon.

A few minutes later, Keith was back on his motorcycle. He hadn’t been on it in at least a week; feeling the wind blow through the ends of his mullet, peeking out from underneath the helmet, felt amazing. He couldn’t help but think about the topic of friends again, though. Shiro would probably always be here, but his thoughts drifted to every ‘friendship’ he had messed up before. Once again he couldn’t stop thinking about Lance, between dangerous intersections and on fast roads. Keith learned that anxiety and busy traffic were not an amazing combination.

 

However, coffee with caramel syrup and milk was an amazing combination apparently.

"It's called a caramel macchiato," Shiro said as he put the cup on Keith's table. It only took him one sip to fall in love. "Holy shit, Shiro, this is amazing."

"Told you. Anyway, I gotta go back to work now. Enjoy," Shiro said. He got back behind the bar, just in time, as the door opened. In came...

Lance McClain. He was with Hunk and Pidge, as always. They were talking about something Keith couldn’t even hear - Lance was mid sentence when his eyes met Keith’s, and he stopped. Hunk looked at him, frowning and wondering why he stopped talking.

Keith took a big gulp of caramel macchiato and fled into the men’s bathroom. There was a single closed off stall: he ran into it and locked the door. No more than 15 seconds later, someone entered the bathroom. “Keith?” Of course it was him. “Don’t tell me you’re hiding from me in here.” Keith heard Lance’s footsteps get closer until they stopped right in front of the door. “Hey man, listen... I feel bad seeing you alone all the time.”

“Maybe you should’ve considered that before you yelled at me,” Keith replied. He was trying not to get mad again, but he knew the annoyance was probably noticeable in his voice

“Hey, I didn’t yell at you!” Lance reeplied. Keith scoffed. “Okay, maybe I did,” Lance continued. “But you yelled too. And you did lie to us. Look, just come out here, so we can talk like normal people.”

Keith reluctantly opened the door. Lance was sitting down against the bathroom wall right across of the stall’s door. Keith slid down next to him.

“Why didn’t you just say you wanted to be alone?” Lance begun. “I don’t think any of us would’ve minded.”

“I told you, I couldn’t just straight up say it. It felt stupid. So it started with one excuse and got worse from there.” He stared at his feet. “I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry.”

“Hey.” Keith felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up in surprise. Lance was looking right at him - his eyebrows were raised and Keith noticed the different shades of blue in his eyes. “It’s fine. Just sit with us again and _tell us_ next time. Instead of lying.”

“Yeah. I will.”

“And I’m sorry for yelling too. I shouldn’t have handled it like that.”

“You shouldn’t be the one apologizing, Lance. I fucked up. You… You were right.”

“I guess you owe me a coffee now!” Lance said, smirking. He got up and reached a hand out to Keith. Keith took it and jumped up; Lance smiled at him and turned around. “By the way, you never told me how you broke that table leg.”

“I threw my calculus book against it in frustration,” Keith confessed. Lance stopped walking right in front of the bathroom door and turned around to face Keith. “I still owe you one for you explaining physics to me! How about tomorrow?”

“Sure.” Keith smiled. “So, what do you want me to get you?” he asked as they walked into the shop itself again.

“The cappucino I got here last time was pretty nice,” Lance answered. “You don’t actually _have_ to buy me one, though.”

“No no, I want to. I think it’s the least I can do. I’ll go get it, you can get back to Pidge and Hunk if you want to.” Lance nodded. “Thanks, Keith.” He walked back to their table, as Keith walked up to Allura to order a large cappucino. Shiro made it, but looked up in surprise when he saw Keith. “Another one already?” He lifted the cup to give it to Keith. “Is yours cold after staying in the bathroom for ten entire minutes or something?” he chuckled.

“No, no. I’m treating a friend to a coffee,” Keith said while taking the cup. Shiro raised his eyebrows, but smiled. They exchanged a meaningful glance before Keith turned around. He picked his own cup up on the way back, relieved to find out that the coffee was still pretty warm.

“And that’s one cappucino for Lance.” Keith said while putting the cup down on the table in front of Lance. He looked at Pidge and Hunk, who were sitting next to eachother. Judging by their looks, Lance had told them about the situation. “Hi, and sorry by the way,” Keith said. He sat down next to Lance and took a big sip of lukewarm coffee.

“It’s okay,” Hunk replied, and Pidge nodded. “By the way, Lance mentioned that the first time we went here was a sunday too. He said you were there too that day, so why don’t we make this a weekly ritual?”

“Matt would appreciate that,” Pidge replied, smirking.

“Shiro probably will, too,” Keith replied. “I’m in.”

“I hope Allura will as well,” Lance said as his eyes wandered off to the counter, his usual flirty smile on his face before he took a sip again.

Hunk sighed and raised his eyebrows while looking at Lance. “Anyway. I’m looking forward to it. This chocolate milk is absolutely amazing.” Everyone else nodded in agreement; they enjoyed their drinks in almost-silence until they were finished. (Lance couldn’t help but yell about anything sometimes, and Pidge & Hunk liked rambling too much.) Keith mostly stayed silent, but couldn’t help but smile a little at the realisation that he made friends. He never thought he’d experience that this year, and he definitely never thought it’d be a loud bunch like this. Keith knew wasn’t always the easiest person to deal with, but Lance, and everyone else, kept trying. So maybe, just maybe, this year would be a little easier than he imagined it to be.


	2. Talk Me Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I wanna sleep next to you_  
>  But that’s all I wanna do right now  
> So come over now and talk me down”
> 
>  
> 
> In which Lance is bad at physics, and the risk Keith took was calculated, but man, was he bad at calculus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter two!! Time for milkshakes, lasertagging, gay panic and just a hint of angst  
> Thank you guys for the love on chapter one already, I hope you will enjoy this one too! The next chapter (which will be the last) is going up next week on friday as well ♥

Their first exams were approaching, which made everything feel just a bit more stressful with every passing day. It also meant that Keith and Lance would spend a lot of time in each others dorms, desperately asking for help about physics or calculus or any other topic they were struggling with. Keith didn’t know if he was happy or not about them spending so much time together, but at least he understood calculus now. Most of the time - but not right now.   
Keith threw his pencil onto his bed in frustration. Lance looked up. “I redid this exercise 5 times and it still won’t work out.”   
“Looks like someone needs to use the calculus hotline,” Lance grinned. ‘Calculus hotline’ had become an inside joke after the 3rd time Keith texted Lance a math question in one day - Lance had given himself the nickname. They just made their exercises in the same dorm now, so Keith had a permanent calculus hotline at his side. “Right, okay. The fundamental theorem - remember that one?” The horrified look on Keith’s face must’ve said enough, as Lance grabbed his book to find the chapter he needed.

It took Lance 3 tries and over half an hour until Keith understood. Lance’s patience truly amazed Keith, although both of them seemed to have had enough after that. “My brain is fried, I think I need a break,” Lance said as he stood up and grabbed his books. Keith shoved everything onto his bed  and got up to grab his backpack.   
“I was planning to go to the coffee shop, wanna come?” Keith asked.   
“Ahh, no, sorry. I promised to look at Hunk and Pidge’s robot stuff. They’re working on an actual, tiny robot and it’s looking pretty cool.”   
“No worries,” Keith replied. Lance had finished shoving his stuff into his bag, so they both walked out towards the door, that Keith locked as soon as Lance was outside. They walked together until they reached Lance's dorm. “Right. See you tomorrow, then?”   
“Yep! Seeya, Keith!” Lance replied, before turning around to enter his dorm. Keith could hear Pidge yelling enthusiastically through the door as he walked away, onto his motorcycle.

 

***

 

Keith had texted Shiro just before he left; when Keith entered the coffee shop, Shiro was in the back at a table with two coffee cups on it. He took a sip from the cup in front of him; the other cup was yelling out to Keith as he sat down across of Shiro. “I hope this is another one of those caramel things.”   
“Caramel macchiato. Of course it is.”

They enjoyed the coffees in silence, until Shiro put his cup down. “So. You got yourself some friends, huh? Out of everyone, I didn’t expect it to be people like them, though.”

“Yeah… They are a bit loud for me, but… They’re really nice. Lance helps me out with calculus and I help him with physics. Exams are coming up.”

“Ahh, Lance. The tall, blue eyed one, isn’t it?”

Keith looked up from his own cup in surprise. “How do you know?”

“He comes here pretty often, and I’m sure he has tried to introduce himself to Allura every time,” Shiro said, a grin on his face. Keith sighed. “Classic.”

“Now… Allura hasn’t been able to shut up about this guy called Lotor, so I wouldn’t rate his chances very high, at the moment.”

“I’d rather not burst his bubble.” Keith chuckled. “How’s Adam, by the way? I haven’t heard or seen him in a while. Not even from you.”

“He’s been… Really busy right now,” Shiro replied. “But we’re good. He got a new job recently.”

“Really? Where?”

“This new milkshake place in town? It’s pretty close to your dorm too, I think.” Shiro sipped from his coffee and looked up from his cup again with a mischievous smile. “Maybe you should take Lance there sometime. Take his thoughts off Allura.”

Keith, mid-sip, almost choked. “I’m sorry,  _ what _ .”

Shiro laughed. “Oh, come on! He totally looks like your type. Remember Taylor? Freshman year?” Keith did not want to remember Taylor from freshman year. However, it was already too late, and Keith had to admit that he was similar to Lance. He knew he had a type, but still… the last thing he wanted was a Taylor-situation with Lance, also known as a ‘having a crush on a straight guy’-situation. “If you don’t shut up right now I am finishing this coffee and walking out,” Keith said, hands covering his head.

“Fine, fine. Even if you’re not bringing Lance there in the Taylor-way, I’m sure Adam would love seeing you there. He still hasn’t properly met you.”

“Sure, maybe. After exams” Keith sighed. “And NOT in the Taylor-way.”

They finished their drinks, so that Shiro could return to work and Keith could return to his dorm. As exams got closer, Keith’s study planning got fuller every evening - he imagined that being home early would start being nice. Keith was not ready for the oncoming exam season - his first at university - but it was here and all he could do was prepare to suffer as best as he could.

 

***

 

It was past 10:30 PM when someone knocked on Keith’s door. Keith remembered that tomorrow was the day of their physics exam, and there, as expected: the person behind his door was Lance. He had coffee in one hand and his physics books in the other hand. The despairing look on his face and dark circles under his eyes explained to Keith what was going on, before Lance could even open his mouth. “So, what chapter do you need help with?”   
“Chapter 9. I’m dying.”

In any other circumstance Keith would’ve told Lance to leave him alone because,  _ oh my god, its almost 11 PM, we have an exam tomorrow, please let me study.  _ But this was physics, and it was Lance, and because of that Keith could tolerate it. Afterall, he had already finished studying and he realized how much Lance struggled with physics - so he allowed Lance to crash onto his bed with all of his physics books at almost 11 PM.

 

Lance was sleep deprived. Clearly. Keith also found out that evening that sleep deprivation got to his emotions. Keith was halfway through his explanation when Lance put his head on his forehead, his elbows on his knees, and leaned over in desperation. “I’m not gonna be able to do this. I’m gonna fail my exam.”

“You’ve gotten through physics in high school too, right?”

“Barely,” Lance replied, still covering half of his face with his hands.

“Barely is enough. If you passed then, you can pass now, too.”

Lance didn’t reply. He took his hands off his face and put them in his lap instead; he was staring at the floor and Keith realized he was crying. Oh god. Keith didn’t exactly have experience with crying people - what were you supposed to do when someone cried? Give them food? Leave them alone? Give them a hug? Keith wasn’t a cuddly person. He barely hugged people. He still felt awkward just sitting there though, so he just awkwardly shoved a bit closer to Lance and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey. You can do this, I’m here.”

“What if I can’t, though. It wouldn’t be the first exam I fuck up.”

“I can explain it to you for as long as you need. I’m done studying, so we have all evening.”

Lance seemed to be sleep deprived  _ and  _ touch starved, because Keith suddenly felt two arms wrapped around him. The movement had made Keith’s hand on Lance’s shoulder slip off and hang awkwardly next to his body. Maybe he shouldn’t leave it there -  _ God, Keith had too little experience with hugging for this _ . He felt awkward, but put his hands on Lance's back. His head fell onto Lance's shoulders almost naturally, his hair tickling his cheek. He could smell it when he breathed in - fresh, like mint, like something you’d find in a Lush store. Surprisingly, Keith’s awkwardness faded away and was replaced with a sense of comfort.   
“Thanks. Sorry. I needed that.” Lance let go.  _ Come back.  _ “It’s okay,” Keith replied.

“I think I’m ready to go on now,” Lance said as he put his books back into his lap. “Let’s slay this physics exam. Or at least attempt to.”

 

***

 

After a couple more exams (and a ton more evenings on Keith’s dorm where they despaired over many different classes), fall semester finally ended. They had a few free days now - they were well needed after weeks of studying.

Keith knew that Pidge and Hunk were off to a robotics expo somewhere; this meant that Lance was all alone in his dorm. Keith remembered his promise to Shiro, that’d he’d visit the milkshake parlor Adam worked. He wanted to ask Lance, but.... What if Lance said no, or what if he thought it was awkward? He had to admit it though - he owed Lance after explaining him an entire calculus chapter 2 hours before the exam. Or every time he had texted him after midnight asking for help. Keith was bad at inviting people, but fuck it. 

He walked to the end of the hallway and knocked on Lance’s door. Lance was wearing headphones; he took them off when he saw Keith standing in his doorway. It looked like he had been cleaning the room. “Oh hi, Keith!”

“Hey, I still owe you one for helping me out with calculus, so… Wanna go to this new milkshake parlor in town? I’m treating you.”

“Right now?” Lance looked over at Keith, eyebrows raised and a smirk on his face. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

_ That was not an answer Keith was expecting, and it was so much worse than the other answers he had imagined.  _ It made something in Keith’s brain rewire, a new pathway that suddenly activated. One that also happened to make his heart skip a beat and to stop his mouth from being able to form words. He just chuckled and turned around - he pretetend to walk away, but really he just didn't want Lance to see the blush creeping from his neck to his cheeks. “You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to. I can also enjoy a nice, tasty milkshake on my own.”  _ Fuck. That came out rude. _

“Nah, I’ll come. I don’t pass opportunities for free drinks. Give me a second.” Keith turned around again, hoping that the blush had already faded. Keith couldn’t stop thinking about the word ‘date’. Was it a date? Did he intend this to be a date? Lance grabbed his backpack and walked back to Keith, who was still standing on the doorway. They were outside a few moments later. “So how are we getting there? I don’t have a car.”

“I have a motorcycle.”

“That red thing, isn’t it? Does it fit two people?” Another thing Keith had not considered.

“I guess we’ll find out.”

It did, in fact, fit two people - but if Lance didn’t want to fall off, his only choice was to grip onto Keith’s waist as tight as he could. Keith felt like he was playing in a scene straight out of your typical shitty teenage romcom movie. Also, this certainly was not helping with the gay panic he had earlier over Lance asking him if it was a date. Lance was practically glued to Keith’s back for the entire drive, so Keith was more than happy when they arrived at the milkshake parlor.

Keith had already met Adam a while ago right after exams ended, when he hung out with Shiro at his house. They had played Cards Against Humanity until 2AM - quite an interesting way to get to know someone.

Adam had just finished taking a table’s order when Keith and Lance entered. “Hey! Keith!” Adam said when he noticed them entering. His eyes then met Lance’s, who gave him a little nod. Keith waved at Adam and replied to his greeting. “Hi, Adam.”

_ Man, seeing someone again when you’re not tipsy is a weird experience.  _ “Have a seat, I’ll come take your order in a few minutes.” Keith looked around at the place, overwhelmed by the vibe it gave off. It felt like another typical movie cliché - checkered floors, walls decorated with posters, red booths and high chairs, smooth silver tables. Even the menu cards looked like something you’d see in a movie: big laminated pieces of paper, with a red checkered border and a cool retro font. 

Keith realized how he had just been staring at the interior, when he heard a cough next to him. “Are you gonna come sit down or what?” Lance said with a smirk on his face and his eyebrows raised. He was sitting down in one of the booths and picked up a menu card. He stared at Lance as he finally sat down and thought of another movie cliché. This looked exactly like the place where the guy in a leather jacket would take the girl in a cute dress after school. 

Keith awkwardly threw his leather jacket on the seat next to him, and sat down across of Lance. Lance obviously wasn’t wearing a dress, but he sure looked cute  _ and okay, this is not the train of thought Keith wanted to have right now.  _ He scanned the menu to distract himself.   
“I’m probably gonna get a strawberry milkshake,” Lance said as he put down the menu card.   
“Oh yeah. Me too, I think?” Keith actually hadn’t decided yet, but strawberry sounded good.   
“We could share one.” Lance smirked and Keith’s heart stopped beating again. “You already practically asked me out and I spent almost 10 minutes stuck to you on a motorcycle, so we might as well do this.”   
It was at that unfortunate moment that Adam popped up behind them to take their orders. “Milkshake sharing? Is this a date, Keith?” Adam grinned. Keith was at a loss for words, but Lance started laughing. “Nah, nah.”   
_ Okay, that was clear. Fuck.  _ “Lance helped me out with calculus during exams. In the middle of the night and more than once…. So I owed him one.”   
“Alright. Sooo…  an extra large strawberry milkshake then? With two straws?” Adam said with the same grin still on his face. Before they could even protest to that in any way, he had already turned around and walked away. “Well, that’s happening,” Lance said and he shrugged.   
“I guess,” Keith replied, his eyebrows realized. God, the movie clichés just kept coming their way. Everything before this was just a dumb coincidence, but for this? Keith was sure that Shiro had a hand in this. He must’ve told Adam about Taylor, his resemblance to Lance and how Keith promised he’d stop by in the milkshake parlor with. Shiro would probably deny it, but Keith  _ knew _ .   
“So… Do you know him? The waiter?” Lance asked, breaking the silence Keith hadn’t even noticed until now. This was probably why people didn’t hang out with him that often.   
“Oh, yeah. He’s, uh…” Was it okay to out Shiro and Adam to Lance like this? Sure, this was the 21st century, but it wasn’t like homophobia didn’t exist anymore. And Lance  _ had _ been making jokes about them going out on a date - them, two guys. Was that a good thing? Did he see two guys on a date as a bad thing or did his jokes mean that he was okay with it? Lance did like making jokes, and he couldn’t exactly see a homophobe make a joke about something like that.   
Lance was staring and Keith realized he had been silent for too long again. “He’s Shiro’s boyfriend. Adam. I hung out with them a few days ago.”   
“Ohh. Boyfriend. Nice,” Lance replied, his gaze awkwardly sliding outside the window.  _ Fuck.  _ Maybe he was just one of those straight guys who were uncomfortable with it. Keith felt like he fucked up.

Logically, he was not very excited when they were served their milkshake. Extra large as promised, with a huge tower of whipped cream, a strawberry on top, and… Two straws on either side. Lance was the first to move closer and suck on the straw, eyes closed to just enjoy the milkshake. 

“Alright. These are really good,” Lance immediately remarked. He looked at Keith, who hadn’t moved and was still sitting with his back glued to the seat. “You should try it too.”

Keith’s eyes widened. “Oh. Yes.” He expected Lance to move back, but he didn’t - he leaned in again, forcing Keith to get awkwardly close. The milkshake  _ did _ taste heavenly, but Keith’s stress over being  _ so close to Lance _ almost took away from the experience. Keith leaned back again and felt a blush creep up his neck.

“Are you really gonna let me finish this thing by myself?” Lance said. He had that dumb mischievous grin on his face again. “Oh, you wish,” Keith replied. He loved and hated that grin. More importantly, he wasn’t gonna let Lance have the entire milkshake for himself. It was on - the milkshake sharing had turned into a competition, instead of the awkward, mushy movie cliché scenario Keith feared. They both leaned in again, drinking maybe a little too fast, but just slow enough to not get a brainfreeze.

Curious, Keith looked away from the milkshake and instead looked at Lance, his lips still at the straw. Lance’s stare was still fixed on the tall glass in front of them as he just sipped happily. He really did look like Taylor. Or the majority of boys he crushed on in high school. Smooth tan skin and messy hair that was usually just hidden underneath a cap and a cute nose and… Blue eyes. Bright and sparkling. They looked just like how he remember Taylor’s eyes, with little specks in it, different shades of blue, and  _ wait. _ __  
Two blue eyes staring right back at him - the eyebrows above them in a puzzled frown. Keith quickly looked down at the milkshake again, noticed that it was almost empty and took the chance.   
“Did you really just take the last sip?” Lance yelled out, his mouth falling open in surprise.   
Keith leaned back and smirked triumphantly. “Told you I wasn’t gonna let you finish it by yourself.” He hoped he didn’t have a terrible blush on his cheeks because his face felt  _ warm. _ __  
“Fine. I get the strawberry then,” Lance said as he attempted picking it out of the bottom of the glass with his straw.    
“Nice try.”   
“Fuck you,” Lance replied just as he got the strawberry out of there. After he finished eating it, he got up. “Alright, maybe we should go pay and head back?” Keith nodded and got up as well. Someone else rang up their order, Keith paid, they waved at Adam and walked out. Keith mentally prepared to have Lance pushed up against his back again.

 

Keith thought he was finally free from all this when they arrived at the dorm - but of course he wasn’t.   
“Would you maybe like to hang some more? Uh… Pidge and Hunk are gone and I’m kind of procrastinating cleaning my dorm,” Lance asked as they walked into the hallway.

Keith didn’t know if he wanted to. It could make everything he felt right now even worse. But on the other hand… He liked spending time with Lance, he really did. And after what happened, Keith didn’t like saying no to almost every invitation anymore. So he nodded. “Sure.”

“Could we maybe go to your dorm? Like I said, I’m procrastinating cleaning, so it’s still a huuuge mess in there!” Keith nodded again, so Lance followed him to his dorm.   
Once inside, Lance went to sit down on the usual place - on top of Keith’s bed. Keith put on some music from his laptop first, then joined Lance there.

“So how do you know Shiro, actually?” Lance asked, staring in front of him out of the window. It had started raining and thick drops of water slid across the glass.

“He’s related to my dad and we lived in the same town when I was younger,” Keith replied, fidgeting with his glove. “I spent most of my time at his house instead of at mine, I guess.”

“Your mom allowed you to do that? If I was gone for longer than an afternoon she’d start yelling at me!”

“Uh…” Mom. A word Keith had avoided most of his life. “My mom wasn’t around actually.”

“Oh, I’m… Sorry.”

“Don’t worry. She left when I was still a kid, anyway. I never knew her.” He shook his head. Keith felt weird just talking about it like this. He had never really talked about it to anyone except Shiro - not even his dad mentioned her a whole lot. He avoided talking about it, like he did with most family-related topics. He just knew her name and he had seen a vague, blurry picture of her. He knew she was Korean. And he had a knife that used to belong to her.

Even though he normally didn’t talk about it, it almost felt natural to talk about it to Lance. This was their first time talking about something deeper than trivial topics like movies or school related stuff but it still felt comforting. Keith never expected to feel at peace like this again, he never expected to trust someone who wasn’t Shiro.

“I also don’t know my real dad. If that’s of any comfort,” Lance mentioned. “He went away when he found out my mom was getting twins - twin sister and me. Didn’t feel like raising  _ two _ more, I guess.”

Keith looked up at him - his usual, happy face was now in a deep frown. Keith never expected a story like this from Lance - Lance who almost always seemed fine and happy and excitable. Like he didn’t have a single worry.

“But anyway. I still grew up with a lot of family, so I didn’t really feel like anyone was missing, in a way. There’s my twin sister Rachel, there’s Veronica, Luis, Marco,... My grandparents also lived with us. It was pretty busy, all the time.” He chuckled.

“Can’t relate. I’ve been an only child all my life and I don’t know if I’d have survived being around so many people all the time.”

“You get used to it.” Lance was smiling now, sincere and  _ absolutely adorable and he had no right looking this cute right in front of Keith’s face. _ “I’d like to see you be around them for a day.”

“What, me?” Keith yelled out in horror. 

“I think it’d be hilarious.”

“I would  _ die. _ ”

“Treat me to another milkshake someday and I promise I won’t kidnap you to bring you all the way to Cuba,” Lance said with his arms crossed and a smug grin on his face.

“Cuba, huh?” Keith asked. 

“Well, my parents and most siblings live here, but… The rest, like my grandparents and other siblings, live there, yeah. And we visit every summer vacation,” Lance replied. “So yes - buy me a milkshake or I’ll drag you along next year.” He smiled at Keith and it made Keith weak for just a second.

“Fine,” Keith replied, smiling back, dying inside. He wasn’t sure if he was emotionally ready for another milkshake date.

 

***

 

Their free days passed and classes began again. Everything started going downhill for Keith from there on out. Not just with the stress from assignments and studying but… Lance. His feelings came slowly and they grew: the tiny flutters in his stomach, his cheeks heating up, his heart either racing or skipping a beat. All because of this one stupid guy with his bright blue eyes and the freckles on his tan skin and brown hair that looked so soft you’d want to run your hands through it and  _ nope nope nope, _  wrong timing. __ L ance was right next to him. Their legs were just barely touching while they were working on their essays on top of Lance’s bed, when Pidge suddenly stormed into the room. “Yo, who wants to go lasertagging?” she yelled.

Lance promptly threw his laptop to the side. “YES.”

“I’ll go back to my dorm. I wanna finish this essay,” Keith said as he closed his laptop and stood up.

“Oh come on!” Lance replied, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve been working on this thing for hours. You could use a break.” Lance crossed his arms and closed his eyes - a smug, prideful grin appeared on his face. “Besides - I’ve already beaten Hunk and Pidge in the past. It’s about time that I beat you now.”

Keith sighed, but closed his laptop. He couldn't pass up an opportunity to compete with Lance.

 

They walked to Hunk’s van in the parking lot. “Shotgun!” Lance yelled.

“I think you forgot that you have lost your rights to shotgun,” Pidge replied as she swiftly passed Lance to slip into the front seat. Lance crossed his arms and stepped into the backseat. “What exactly did Lance to do lose those rights?” Keith asked as he jumped into the back seat aswell, next to Lance.

“Front seat means access to the aux cord. In Lance’s case, that means continuous Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Despacito at least three times,” Hunk sighed. “Is everyone strapped in?” Three seatbelts clicked into place and Hunk started the car.

“Sooo… We’re gonna be playing ‘free for all’ right?” Lance asked, grinning.

Pidge nodded. “As always, yes.”

“How about the first one out treats the winner to a milkshake? Or a coffee?” Lance suggested. The same grin appeared on his face again - smug, prideful.

“You really can’t do anything without making it a challenge, huh?” Hunk commented.

“It’s because I’m the best at this game,” Lance said. “And I like getting free drinks.” Pidge rolled her eyes and Hunk shrugged. Lance looked over at Keith and raised his eyebrows. “What do you think?”

“Is it really necessary?” Keith sighed.

“Sounds to me like  _ you’re  _ scared of losing!” Lance grinned, putting an hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“I’m not scared!” Keith yelled back. He brushed Lance’s hand off his shoulder, but Lance kept looking at him. This was another one of his challenges and denying Lance wasn’t an option. Also, Lance’s staring made him nervous. “Fine. I’m in.” Keith crossed his arms.

“You heard him, guys!” Lance said proudly. Hunk and Pidge shared a meaningful glance. “Let’s see how this goes…” Pidge mumbled.

 

The lasertag place was out of town, but after a twenty minute drive filled with more bickering and taunting, they finally arrived.

They were greeted by a ginger boy at the front desk. “Welcome to Colony Lasertag! I’m Bandor. Do you have a reservation?”

Pidge stepped to the front. “We called around half an hour ago.”

Bandor checked the computer in front of her. “Katie, Hunk, Keith and Lance?” They all nodded. “This way, please. My sister Romelle will give you your equipment and lead the games. Have fun!” Bandor said as he smiled and pointed at the door. They were immediately greeted by a girl with two ashy blonde ponytails and a braid on top of her head. “Hi, I’m Romelle and I’ll be leading your games today! Now, have you guys played lasertag before?”

Keith shook his head while everyone nodded.    
“Alright, I will go over the rules for you, then,” she said as she looked at Keith. “You all get a vest with a sensor and a laser gun. No physical contact, no covering the sensor. If you’re out or if the batteries on your gear run out, raise your arms and walk back here, so the others know that they can’t shoot you. You’ll be in two teams - red and blue. We’ll do some team games and some free for all last, if that’s fine for you all?”

“Perfect,” Lance replied - clearly excited at the mention of ‘free for all’. He turned to Keith and grinned, mouthing ‘ _ you’re going down’ _ . Keith grinned back. All feelings set aside - no way Keith was gonna let him win.

 

Five minutes later they were all geared up on the playfield. They were divided into teams randomly - Hunk and Keith as team red, Pidge and Lance as team blue. The first game was a classic ‘Capture the flag’-kind, which team blue won almost effortlessly. The first victory only fed Lance’s fighting spirit and desire to beat Keith. They followed it up with a game of ‘Kill the Captain’ and a team switch - with Pidge now in team Red and Hunk joining Lance in team Blue. While Keith quickly learned that Lance was a great sharpshooter, in this kind of games Pidge’s strategies didn’t stand a chance, making team Red victorious. Losing made Lance even more competitive in their final team game, where he joined Keith in team Red for ‘Team Elimination’. Both teams went to opposite ends of the playing field: a minute was left before the game would start, allowing them to discuss their strategy.

“So Hunk is very bad at this. Pidge isn’t great at aiming, but she’s amazing at strategy…” Lance mumbled.

Keith was good at strategy too. No match for Pidge, sure, but… “We should split up. Try to attack from different angles,” Keith proposed. Lance nodded. “Hunk and Pidge tend to stick together, so if one of us can get them both at the same time, that’s an instant win.” 

“I’ll take left, you take right,” Keith whispered. Romelle’s voice counted down from five to one over the speakers. “Don’t miss,” Keith added, before he got up and ran to the left side, his gun already raised defensively. The arena they were playing in wasn’t huge, so it didn’t take long before Keith heard two pairs of steps. He hid behind a wall and scanned the arena, trying to see if he could find Lance on the other side. The steps approached; Hunk and Pidge were whispering something to eachother, too quietly for Keith too hear. He suddenly spotted Lance not too far away from him, hiding behind another wall as well. He noticed Keith at the same time and smirked. Hand gestures weren’t the easiest thing for Keith to interpret, but the plan was clear. As soon as Lance mouthed ‘ _ go! _ ’, Keith jumped out from his hiding spot and aimed. Hunk shrieked as his sensor went off. “They’re here!” Pidge yelled as she aimed back at Keith. She delivered one direct hit to his sensor - Keith mumbled a curse word under his breath as he jumped behind the wall again. It didn’t take long for him to jump out from his hiding spot again, this time appearing behind them. The duo turned around, but they were quickly greeted by Lance, who popped out from behind another wall. A few well placed shots later, the lights on both Hunk and Pidge’s sensors turned red. Keith’s sensor had turned red as well in the process, but it didn’t matter: team Blue was eliminated. Lance high fived Keith. “We did it! We are a good team!” he yelled excitedly, before turning to the others.

“Yet another victory for team Lance!”

“Team Red,” Keith corrected. 

“Who was it that delivered that final shot?” Lance replied. “Oh, you’re right, that was me. You’re welcome.” Keith sighed and walked into the starting room again, where Romelle was waiting.

“Alright, it’s time for your final game, I’m afraid!” she said. “Last but not least, we’ll be playing One For All: every man for himself. Five shots and you’re out, last one standing wins.” 

“I hope you guys are ready to get absolutely  _ wrecked _ ,” Lance yelled out as he entered the playing field again. This was Lance’s expertise, Keith knew - but once again, Keith wouldn’t just let him win without putting up a fight.   
They spread across the playing field, waited for Romelle’s voice to count down again and got in position. “Three… Two… One!” Keith immediately sprinted towards the middle of the field. He ran into Hunk on his way there, who got a good shot on his sensor. Four more, and he was out. He’d have to be careful.   
It didn’t take long until he found Lance sneaking around. He didn’t notice him yet - Keith was in the perfect position to take him out. The look on Lance’s face when his sensor went off was absolutely priceless and Keith could barely hold in his laughter as he sprinted away before Lance could fire back. He was surprised by Pidge who had been waiting behind the wall Keith ran to; they hit each other once before they both ran off again.

A couple of minutes later, Hunk’s voice suddenly appeared over the speakers. “I’m out, you guys. Don’t let Lance win, please,” he said. “Gotcha,” Keith mumbled to himself. He ran into Pidge not even ten seconds later - she shot him, but when he managed to shoot her, her sensor turned red. She raised her eyebrows. “Well… It’s up to you now, Keith. I think Lance only has one life left before he’s out.  _ Finish him, _ ” she said. Keith grinned and nodded. He checked the screen on his laser gun. He only had one life left as well: it was now or never.

He sneaked around the arena as quietly as possible, his ears pricked for the sound of footsteps. His heart skipped a beat when he saw Lance just a few meters away from him. It was just the two of them in the arena, he realized. He got the overwhelming urge to run up to him, back him into a corner and kiss him in the dark, where no one could see them.    
And then shoot him. And walk away triumphantly.   
It’d make things awkward. There was no way Lance even had a crush on him. He was probably straight, crushing on Allura, or any other girl he -    
_ Zap.  _ “Ha! Take that, mullet!” Keith looked down - his sensor had turned red. Lance was standing in front of him, gun raised up in the air victoriously.   
_ Fuck. _

 

***

 

“You had one job, Keith,” Pidge sighed as they sat down with their coffees. Lance was sipping his frappuccino - paid for by Hunk, as promised - with a smug grin on his face.

“It’s official. I’ve beaten everyone now!” he yelled excitedly. “I’m like the cool ninja sharpshooter of the group.”

Keith scoffed and looked up from his coffee. “Are you joking?” 

“I’m being completely serious! You’re just jealous because I managed to beat you,” Lance snapped back, proudly crossing his arms. Although Keith would’ve liked winning too… Seeing Lance happy like this made him feel nice, too.

“We should do this again, though. Lance can’t remain victorious forever,” Pidge said as she adjusted her glasses.

Hunk nodded. “Definitely.”

Keith smiled and agreed as well. “I’ll beat him one day.”

It didn’t take long before he and Lance had started bickering as well, the other two soon joining in as well.

 

They only got up from their table when all of the other tables were empty and the coffee shop was about to close - 7PM. They had gone through two rounds of drinks, so caught up in their conversations that they didn’t want to leave. It was Shiro who came to their table to tell them that the store was about to close. Keith was about to put on his jacket as well, when Shiro asked him if he could stay a little longer to talk and hang out.   
“Hunk gave us a ride, so I don’t have my motorcycle…” 

“I’ll drive you home. We haven’t hung out together in a while because of your exams, Keith,” Shiro reminded him.

Keith nodded and he turned to the group. “I’ll see you guys later?”

Lance was the first to respond. “Alright! See you later, Keith!” Keith smiled, waved at the others and turned around to Shiro again, who had started sweeping the floor. “Not in the Taylor-way, huh?” Shiro said, not even looking up from his work.

“Fuck off,” Keith said as he went to sit down on the table they had sat at previously.

“Adam told me about your date at the milkshake parlor.”

“It wasn’t a date!”

“Is that why he said you were blushing the whole time?” Shiro teased. “Or why you basically had heart eyes at him the entire time just now?”

“I didn’t-” Keith protested, but he sighed. Shiro gave him a knowing look. “Fine. Maybe a little.” He shook his head. “You were right. This is a Taylor-situation all over again. He’s probably straight. Why does this keep happening to me?”

“It’s not because he flirted with Allura that he’s straight, Keith. Bi people exist.”

Caught up in his previous train of thought, Keith hadn’t even  _ considered _ that Lance could be bi. Still… It scared him. “But he could also be straight. When I mentioned that you and Adam were dating, he responded like... ‘Oh. Cool. Boyfriend.’ He probably thought it was weird. He can’t be gay. Or bi.”

Shiro walked up to him, put a hand on his shoulder sternly and looked him in the eye. “I thought Adam was straight too.”

Keith raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms, but didn’t respond.    
“You’ll never know until you ask him,” Shiro added. He went back to sweeping the floor. “Now, if you wanna help me clean this place, I’ll make you dinner and another caramel macchiato. Come on.”

 

***

 

Shiro’s motivational talks usually helped, but this one had just made everything worse.   
A lot worse.   
The thought of Lance being bisexual made him question his every move for signs that Shiro could be right.   
The thought of him admitting to Shiro that this was a ‘Taylor-situation’, out loud, had also sparked some thoughts. Later that evening he had gone to to Shiro’s house, where the topic had of course come up. He had admitted to both Shiro  _ and  _ Adam that he probably had a crush on Lance. They listened to him ramble about his looks, and how adorable he was when he got all competitive, and how he was always there when Keith needed help and how Keith just wanted to be there for him as well. It eventually got to how much Keith wanted to run his hands through Lance’s hair, or how he wanted to trace his freckles, or how he had wanted to kiss Lance in the lasertagging arena. Keith made a mental note to never visit the milkshake parlor again (as Adam would now refuse to give them anything else than a big milkshake to share), and was relieved when the topic changed to how hard Adam and Shiro had been pining after eachother in high school. It sparked some hope in him - Adam and Shiro went through the same thing Keith had been going through now, so who said things couldn’t get better?   
His hope melted away every time he was around Lance though, every time he saw him stare at or even flirt with a girl, every time he said ‘no’ to hanging out with Keith or every time he shuffled away when their legs touched. The semester started again, which meant that they’d hang out more again - the calculus and physics got harder, so they could both use a little help.

It was 8PM when Keith knocked on Lance’s door with his calculus book in his hands. He heard a gasp through the thin walls, the sound of Lance blowing his nose, then a muffled “Keith?”. 

“Yeah, it’s me,” Keith replied.

“Come in.” Keith frowned and entered the room. Lance was laying in his bed under the covers on his phone, facing the wall. Hunk and Pidge didn’t seem to be around.

“Hey.”

Lance didn’t look up from his phone. “Hi.”

“Is something… wrong?” Keith asked. He dropped his book on the desk.

“Mmh…” 

Keith got closer - he noticed Lance’s red puffy eyes and the pile of tissues next to his bed. “Uh...” He sat down on the end of the bed. “What’s up?” 

“It’s a lot,” Lance replied, not looking up from his phone.

“Do you… Need a hug?” Keith asked quietly.

“Maybe.” Lance put his phone on his bedside table, but didn’t get up - he was just staring at the other side of the room blankly. Keith shuffled closer and just put his hand on Lance’s shoulder awkwardly, unsure of what to do.

“Just come lay down. This looks dumb,” Lance mumbled. He pushed the sheets off him.

“Oh. Yeah.” Keith laid down and put an arm over Lance, praying that he couldn’t hear his heart beating twice as fast as usual. He had never cuddled anyone, let alone a guy he liked. Lance smelled the same as the first time they hugged and Keith had started to find the smell comforting.

“I hope you weren’t here to ask me something for class because I’m not really in the mood…” Lance said.

“I was, but don’t worry about it.” Keith chuckled nervously. “Do you want to talk?”

He felt Lance shrug. “I don’t know. Like I said… It’s a lot.” Lance got up, causing Keith’s arm to fall next to him again, so he sat up too. “Can we maybe go to your dorm? Hunk and Pidge are playing Dungeons & Dragons somewhere. In case they come home early I don’t want them to see me like this.”

“Of course, man.”

Keith checked if no one was in the hallway; it was clear, so the two rushed towards Keith’s room. Lance went to go lay down in Keith’s bed again, while Keith walked up to his laptop to put on some music. When Keith walked away from his laptop to go sit next to Lance, he sat upright and rested his head against Keith’s shoulder.

“I just got sad because Pidge and Hunk were off having fun without me again, I guess. I just feel like such a third weel around them,” Lance started.

“I’m here now, right? You’re not a third weel anymore.”

“Yeah, of course!” Lance got up and looked at Keith - the sincere smile on his face could have made Keith melt right there and then. “And I’m thankful for that. But I met Hunk and Pidge in our senior year, and… I’ve just been a third weel since then. I don’t even get why, I knew Hunk way before Pidge did, yet they became best friends almost instantly.” He looked at his feet sadly.

“I get how you feel. I’ve always been a third wheel in friend groups I was in too…” Keith replied. “Usually they ended up just getting rid of me. Because they didn’t like me. You guys are the first people I’d actually consider friends.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled at Lance again. “Mostly you, I’d say.”

Lance smiled back and they looked at eachother for a couple of seconds. Lance’s eyes were still a bit red and puffy, there were still some half dried tears on his cheeks, but he was smiling, the shine had returned to his eyes, and despite the fact that he had been crying, Keith thought he was the cutest guy alive and all he wanted to do was kiss him.  _ Not now.  _ “Who knew this would happen just because I threw a couple of dumb notes, huh?” 

Keith laughed. “I was almost going to ignore them.”

“No one can ignore Lance McClain’s irresistible aura,” Lance grinned. He sighed and laid down; Keith quickly joined on the free pillow next to Lance. 

They must’ve stayed like that for more than 10 minutes, just staring at the ceiling and thinking. Keith could’ve fallen asleep right there, if it wasn’t for Lance suddenly jumping up at a song that came on. “Dude. This song played at my senior prom and I’m getting major nostalgia.”

“Beyoncé? At prom?” Keith exclaimed.

“First of all - Halo is one of the most amazing songs ever created,” Lance said. “Second of all, they didn’t play Beyoncé at your prom?”

Keith sat up and shook his head. “I didn’t even go to prom.”

“You never went to prom?” Lance yelled. “You’ve never awkwardly danced around with a girl to Beyoncé’s Halo?”

Actually, Keith couldn’t really see himself dance with a girl, ever, but now was not the time to pepper in the fact that he was gay. “I don’t even know how to dance.”7

Lance’s mouth almost fell open and he reached out his hands. “I am teaching you how to dance right now.”

Keith frowned and wanted to protest, but Lance insisted. “Fine,” Keith muttered as he took off his gloves and threw them onto his bed.

“I’ll lead. Just follow what I do,” Lance mumbled. He put his hands on Keith’s lower back and instructed him to put his own hands around Lance’s neck.

Lance was a good dancer, and Keith was a quick learner. In no time, Keith was swiftly following Lance’s movement in the cramped space of his dorm, between the desk and the bed. A couple of songs passed until it changed to Iris by the Goo Goo dolls - one of Keith’s favorite songs of all time. 

__ “And all I can taste is this moment  
__ And all I can breathe is your life  
_ And sooner or later it's over  
_ __ I just don't wanna miss you tonight”

They were smiling, chuckling whenever one of them would trip or put his foot in the wrong place. Keith’s heart was racing even faster and his entire face was probably red, but it didn’t matter, because in this moment, all that existed was the two of them dancing around the room.

__ “And I don't want the world to see me  
__ 'Cause I don't think that they'd understand  
_ When everything's meant to be broken  
_ __ I just want you to know who I am”

It happened before Keith could even realize what he was doing.   
He kissed him.   
Lance had twirled Keith around, pulled him back, they were staring into eachother’s eyes for longer than a second and it just happened. He kissed Lance.

It would’ve been a fairytale moment if Lance hadn’t pulled away after a moment. “I… I can’t do this,” he muttered. He let go of Keith’s hands.

“Wait, I’m sorry, I…” Keith said, but it was too late. Lance had turned around and ran away, leaving Keith alone and confused.

Tears welled up in his eyes and he started pacing around his room.  _ Why, why, why did he do that? _ he punched the wall, twice, three, four times. He felt his knuckles starting to bleed. It hurt but it didn’t matter, because nothing came close to the pain he felt in his heart. He was stupid. He fucked up. Worst of all… He was rejected. Lance had given him a clear ‘no’. He was left alone again - reminded once again of the fact that everyone left. His mom, Shiro, all of his ‘friends’. Lance. Things wouldn’t be the same anymore - he was convinced that Lance didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. This wasn't a situation Keith could fix, this was a decision more reckless and  _stupid_ than just making excuses for not wanting to hang out. 

Forget everything about this becoming easier, Keith thought to himself. He just ruined every shot at making this year somewhat manageable. He ruined it entirely. And everything would get the opposite of easier from here on out.


	3. Gasoline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Bathe me now, wash me clean  
>  Just set my heart on fire  
> Just like gasoline”_
> 
> In which Keith’s heart breaks, and Lance’s hand almost does too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, last chapter is here a day early! TW for violence & violence aftermath in this one  
> Please enjoy ♥

A bunch of messages full of typos and a motorcycle ride later, Keith stormed into the coffee shop. It had just closed and Allura was cleaning; Shiro was there with open arms, that Keith ran straight into. “Shiro, I fucked up.” he mumbled.

“Hey. Sit down,” Shiro said as he let go. “Just tell me what happened.”

“I… I kissed Lance. And he ran away.”

“Oh.”

“I told you he was straight,” Keith sighed, burying his face into his hands. “He probably never wants to see me again.”

“You need to go talk to him, Keith,” Shiro said softly. Allura arrived at their table and put down a mug of coffee. “I feel like you could use this,” she said. “And… Shiro is right.” Keith looked up at her; she was smiling at him softly. Her presence was almost calming.

“Thank you.” He picked up the mug and took a long sip. “I don’t want to talk to him. He clearly doesn’t want anything to do with me. He left, just…” He nervously tapped against his cup.  _ Don’t say it.  _ “Just like everyone else,” he mumbled.

“Keith, if this is about your mom, I-”

“It’s not just about my mom and you know it, Shiro.” Keith slammed the mug down on the table harder than intended. Shiro stared at it for a moment, then back at Keith. “What do you mean?” he replied calmly.

Keith crossed his arms and looked to the side with an angry frown on his face. “ _ You _ left.” He felt the anger bubble up inside him faster than he’d like it to. A stick of dynamite slowly being lit, flame approaching the end of the wick.

“Keith, you know why I-”

And then it exploded. “I’m sure my mom also had a good reason to, but that doesn’t change anything! She left and then you did! And now Lance did.” Keith stood up briskly - his chair almost fell over behind him. He turned around. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Keith!” Shiro yelled, but to no avail. Keith stormed out of the door, just to be followed by Shiro to the parking lot.

“You don’t have to do this, just stay here, and-”

“Can’t you see I just need to be alone?” he yelled back as he jumped on his motorcycle.

“I don’t get why you always have to do this!” Shiro turned around. “Just go away then, go be alone. But don’t come storming back here tomorrow morning because you’re alone, Keith.”

“Fine!” Keith drove off, reckless, uncaring. If they hit him, they hit him. Who’d even care.

  
He arrived at the campus’ parking lot (surprisingly without being hit), but couldn’t bring up the courage to walk back to his dorm. He didn’t wanna risk running into Lance, he didn’t wanna talk to anyone who may know what had happened. So instead he just stayed there, sitting on the cold concrete ground next to his motorcycle. He fiddled with the fake knife he kept in his boots.   
It was a real one once, owned by his mom.  _ Krolia. _ Fidgeting with it usually made him feel better, but now it just made him stressed. It worried him.   
She left. She left Keith and his dad all alone. Clearly he didn’t matter enough, right? He didn’t matter to her. Why would he matter to anyone else? Shiro was mad at him, he had embarrassed Lance.   
He couldn’t help wondering how different his life could have been if she hadn’t left so soon. Apparenty Keith was two when she left. No one never even found out why - one day she said she had to leave, the next day she was gone without a trace. His dad had told him about it the same day she gave him her old knife. The edges were dulled so Keith could carry it around with him. It felt comforting to hold it, even though he knew he had no idea who this person was. Even though he felt like she left them, like she didn't care.

After that day, Keith’s dad never mentioned her again, until the day Keith had to decide what he’d study after high school. He didn’t want to do mechanical engineering, but who was he to deny what his dad wanted on this? It was what his mom had studied. The field they had worked in together until Keith came. Keith couldn’t just dismiss the high standards his dad put up, the pressure, the anger, the evenings where his dad would do nothing except yell at him. He had to do better at school so he could get into this university and study mechanical engineering. And sure, he had managed, but was it worth it? Here he was, almost crying at the parking lot, because he was in love with someone he met at university. Lance McClain, tall, tan skin, blue eyes, liked to throw notes at him during university lectures. Lance who would explain the same calculus chapter over and over until Keith understood, who would try so hard to beat him at lasertag, who shared milkshakes and packets of cookies and pizzas with him until they couldn’t eat or drink anything anymore.   
Lance McClain, who he impulsively kissed, causing him to run away from him. Lance McClain, who he’d probably never see again, except from awkwardly passing him in the hallway, too embarrassed to even smile or nod.

And to take things a step further, he had yelled and ran away from Shiro - his only friend, who had been there for him for years. Shiro knew Keith well enough to know this was just his impulsivity, his temper, but maybe accusing Shiro of abandoning him like his mom did had gone too far. Keith didn’t even know if he’d have a chance to fix this.

He would’ve loved to have his mom around. Maybe she knew how to handle things like this.   
Keith shook his head. Maybe he could still fix things. Tomorrow, when everything would hopefully be calmer. When his heart wouldn’t feel like it could explode into a million tiny pieces. Maybe he should follow the advice to go talk to him. And go fix things with Shiro after that…

Keith shook his head - who was he kidding? He should just leave it alone and forget about it. Pretend that nothing happened and stay alone for the following years until he could leave this place with a degree. Being a lone wolf was his only tried and true strategy.

 

Keith had gotten back up and was almost at the entrance of his dorm when he heard cries coming from behind the building. He frowned, grabbed his knife out of his boots again, and sneaked around the corner. Someone was leaning against the wall while someone else hit him with a nasty right hook, followed by a punch to the stomach. He was trying to punch back, but the other guy was stronger and more trained. Keith put away his knife and pulled out his phone, ready to call an emergency number. It was dark and therefore hard to discern anything, but as Keith inched closer, he realized who it was, standing there against the wall.

_ Why on earth was someone beating up Lance? _

He was behind the other dude an instant later and slammed him against the wall, away from Lance.  _ Those martial arts classes he took when he was 17 weren’t completely useless afterall. _ He punched the guy’s face and pinned his arms behind him, only to pull out his knife seconds later and hold it in front of his neck. “If you don’t stay right here while we walk away, I’m not gonna hesitate to use this,” Keith hissed. The knife wasn’t sharp and he couldn’t hurt him, but the guy didn’t know that. He seemed terrified at the sight of the knife; Keith took this opportunity to kick him in the stomach, causing him to double over and fall to his knees.    
While the guy was on the floor, Keith ran over to Lance and grabbed his hand. “Lance, now! Come on!” he yelled. He pulled Lance inside quickly, to the safety of his dorm. Lance stumbled and broke down onto Keith’s bed immediately. He was bleeding, but Keith wasn’t worried about his sheets, or the fact that Lance had just rejected his feelings earlier that evening. All he was thinking about now was making sure Lance was okay. Calm him down and fix him up - he’d ask what had happened later. That wasn’t his first concern.   
He sat down at the end of his bed. Watching Lance like this was absolutely heartbreaking. His shoulders were shaking, he was sobbing, unable to bring out anything coherent.   
“Would you like a hug?” Keith asked carefully. Lance nodded softly and Keith laid down, wrapping his arms around Lance, just like earlier. Lance buried his face into Keith’s neck and held onto his waist almost desperately.   
It took a while for Lance to stop crying and even longer for him to calm down. Keith just stayed next to him, quietly, stroking through his hair and over his back. “We should get your face cleaned up,” he muttered when he felt that Lance was no longer shaking or crying. He felt Lance nod against his neck and got up slowly. “Stay here. I’ll go get some disinfectant.”

Keith had a small first aid box in one of his closet drawers. Lance had slowly sat upright again and Keith sat himself down in front of him. He slowly started to clean the blood off Lance’s face; he had a cut on his cheek, nose and mouth, as well as a bruise that was starting to form around his eye. Keith’s eyes met Lance’s as he swiped the cotton pad over his cheek and Keith froze up as they just stared at eachother in silence. Keith looked away and continued to wipe all of the blood away.   
“Alright, that should be ok-”   
Keith couldn’t finish his sentence as Lance leaned over and kissed him this time. It caught Keith by surprise and he pulled away after a few seconds, his face bright red.

“What-”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please…” Lance muttered. “Can I kiss you again? I’ll explain later. I’m sorry,” he repeated.

Asking what had happened went further down the list of priorities as Keith leaned back in. He put a hand on the back of Lance’s head and pulled him closer as he shuffled against the wall, a more comfortable position than them awkwardly sitting in the middle of the bed. Lance crawled on top of Keith’s lap. While their first kiss had been impulsive and awkward, and the second one just as impulsive but soft and honest, this one was different. It was hungry and desperate, it was them needing each other and nothing else in the moment. Keith could still taste some blood from the cut on Lance’s lip, but he didn’t mind - all he could think about was Lance. Lance, the guy he liked, the guy who had ran away from him but who was on his lap kissing him right now. 

It took a while until they were ready to let go. 

“Thank you,” Lance muttered. He rolled off Keith's lap and sat down next to him, resting his head on Keith's shoulder.

“You still owe me an explanation, though,” Keith started.

“I know.” Lance bit his lip and stayed silent for a moment. “That guy was, uh… My ex boyfriend. Ian.”

_ Boyfriend.  _ “Wait… You’re-”

“Ha, yeah. Surprise. I guess I’m bi.” Lance chuckled softly. “He was a childhood friend from elementary school in Cuba. Suddenly in senior year he was at the same school as mine and things just… Happened, I guess? But that was around the same time I met Hunk and Pidge, and I just couldn’t tell them.”

“You couldn’t tell them?” Keith frowned. 

“My friends in middle school were homophobic,” Lance muttered. “Stuff like that really fucks you up. I thought they’d respond the same way.”  
Keith nodded. He had definitely known some people like that at school, and if it wasn’t for Shiro being so accepting, Shiro being gay and out and proud as well, everything would’ve been a lot harder.

“It’s why I ran away from you earlier. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to get into the whole thing again…”

“I’m sure Hunk and Pidge wouldn’t mind, though. Hunk is the kindest person around, and Pidge is probably too concerned about her computers to care about anything else.” Lance chuckled and Keith calmed down a little, knowing that Lance was calming down too. “I’m just wondering… Why was he here, though? Your ex? And why the hell was he beating you up behind the building?”

Keith could feel Lance tense up again. “I broke up with Ian near the end of senior year because I was just too scared about people finding out I was bi. I ended it pretty abruptly, so we didn’t talk for the rest of that year… We were just kind of avoiding each other when we passed eachother in the hallways.”

“But why was he suddenly here again?” Keith asked.

“He found out that I went to university here and said he happened to be in the area. He was suddenly at my dorm not even 15 minutes after I ran away from you. Not exactly what I needed at that moment.”

Keith frowned. “He was at your dorm?”

“He messaged my sister. I never even told my family we were dating or that we broke up, so she thought he was just a friend who wanted to meet up. So he was at my door, told me he just wanted to talk while walking around the campus. And I agreed.” Lance sighed. “Stupid decision.”

“That’s not stupid. You couldn’t have known anything like that was going to happen.”

“I guess.” 

“What did he talk to you about?”

“He said that he missed me, stuff like that.” Lance chuckled again. “That sounds so cliché, but whatever. “I explained that I broke up with him because I didn’t want anyone to know I was dating a guy. So then he said he wanted to try it again, the two of us. He assumed that no one from school was around to judge us anymore, so he thought it could work out.” Lance sat up in Keith’s lap again and nervously stared at his hands. “I said that it couldn’t work out because I liked someone else. So he pulled me behind the building and punched me, and that’s where you came in.”

Keith raised his eyebrows. “Wow, I’m… I’m sorry. That’s a lot.”  _ Because he liked someone else. _ The words repeated themselves in Keith’s mind and he was too scared to say anything about it.

“It’s fine. I suppose it’s all good as long as I have you and your knife around.” Keith had put the knife onto his desk - he noticed Lance’s eyes resting on it. “Is.. Is that a real one?”

“Oh. No, it used to be real but my dad dulled down the edges so I could carry around. It used to be my mom’s.”

Lance nodded and stayed silent for a couple of moments. “I’m sorry that I ran away from you, by the way. I was just… I didn’t want to get into the whole thing again… Falling for someone, for a guy, for….” He looked back at Keith. “I… I do like you, Keith. I just had a hard time accepting it. Accepting that I was bi. Accepting that I did in fact fall for you. I don’t think I fully realized it until I told Ian.”

“I understand, and I like you too, Lance, but…” Keith paused and bit his nail nervously. “I’m not sure about how I feel.”

Lance turned around and frowned. He moved so he was sitting across of Keith. “Wh-what do you mean?”

Keith stared out the window next to his bed. The campus was calm, empty and lit up by just a few lamp posts here and there. “I thought you hated me after you ran away. I went to the coffee shop  but now Shiro is mad at me. Do you even know how it feels to have everyone leave you, constantly, no matter how hard you try?”

“M-my dad-”

“You never even met him!”

Lance stared at him with a pained expression and Keith realized that maybe wasn’t the right thing to say. “Um, I-I didn’t-” he stammered.

“You never met your mom either, right? That doesn’t mean it hurts any less.” Lance crossed his arms and looked away.

Keith bit his lip, not knowing what to say back. They sat next to eachother quietly, until Keith swung his legs over the edge of the bed and got up. “I’m gonna get some food.” He had been working on calculus all evening, so caught up in trying to understand, that he skipped dinner. “I only have some instant noodles. In case you want something too.”

“O-oh. Yes, if it’s not a problem.”

Keith filled two noodle cups with water. Lance picked up the first aid box from the floor - it had fallen down while they were making out. Keith stared at the microwave as the plastic cups turned around calmly; from the corner of his eyes, he could see Lance whimper as he cleaned the wounds that had started bleeding again. He put the box back into the closet drawer and just stared at his feet, and Keith realised he was an asshole.

He took the cups out of the microwave, handed one to Lance and sat down on his desk with the other one. Keith finished his in a few minutes, but Lance just swirled his chopsticks around in the cup, only eating a small bite every now and then. Maybe he should apologize, Keith thought to himself. Yet he stayed quiet, and got up to throw his cup away. 

“Can I sleep here?” Lance suddenly asked. Keith turned around and frowned. “I don’t want Hunk and Pidge to see me like this yet. I don’t wanna explain to them that I’m, uh…” He crossed his arms. “You know. Yeah.”

Keith stared down at the trash bin. Sleeping in one bed with Lance was the last thing he wanted right now. After all of this had gone down, he just wanted to be alone, process everything, or just get his mind off things.

“Um. Are you gonna throw that cup away?” Lance mumbled and Keith realised he had been staring down the trash bin for longer than normal, his hand with the cup hovering above it. He quickly dropped it in.

It wasn’t like Keith had a choice on this. He wasn’t the best at understanding people, but he got why Lance couldn’t just get back to his own dorm right now. Coming out was already a hard thing, and with the whole Ian story added onto it…

“Yeah, sure. You can stay here.” Keith finally replied. “I’ve only got one bed, though, it’s pretty big, but-”

“Oh, um…” Lance bit his nail. “I swear I don’t snore or steal blankets.”

Keith nodded.

 

And then he woke up at 4AM to the sound of Lance snoring next to his ear, and his legs freezing because all of the blankets were on the other side. Lance’s arm was around Keith’s chest and his chin was on his shoulder. He turned his head and was about to wake him up, but Lance looked pretty cute sleeping. After how draining last evening must have been, Keith would rather let him sleep.   
_Last evening._  It felt like one big blur of events, various movie scenes that followed eachother up way too quickly. He went from being sure that Lance hated him, to being sure that Shiro hated him, to running into a fight, to finding out that Lance didn’t  _ actually _ hate him, quite the contrary.   
No doubt that they’d run into Hunk and Pidge - they would definetely be wondering why the hell Lance was covered in cuts and bruises, so they’d owe those two an explanation as well.  
After that he’d need to go talk things out with Shiro. They had had fights before, Keith had ran away from him before, but maybe this one had gone a bridge too far and he didn’t know how he’d have to handle it.

And of course he’d have to talk things out with Lance - probably first and foremost. Although he already felt more comfortable openining up than in the beginning, it was still such a hard thing for him. Finding out that Lance didn’t actually hate him was a relief, but what if he had actually started hating him after this? He hadn’t even apologized yet.  
He knew he liked Lance - he really did. And he regretted what he had said.  
Keith just felt like everything had gone too fast; too much had happened in just one evening. Fight after fight after fight. In a situation like that it was easy to lose the ability to think rationally, wasn’t it? He sighed. He couldn’t just use that as an excuse for hurting people.

Once again he wished he was just on his own. Or maybe he just wished that his mom never left. He felt like finding out about her was where it all started. Why he didn’t trust anybody, why he was scared of letting people into his life, why he pushed them away sooner or later. Why none of his relationships worked out well - new ones or ones that went way back. He wished he wasn’t like this. Things would be so much easier if everything had been different. If he didn’t have these walls up.   
He bit his lip as he felt tears well up in his eyes. Now was not an ideal time to cry - 4 AM in the morning with the boy he liked right next to him. It was comforting to have him there in a way, but then it wasn’t when he remembered how things had gone, or when he realized that he didn’t want Lance to see him like this.

Keith took a shaky breath and slowly inched away from Lance. He just needed a glass of water and a little bit of time for himself. 

Unfortunately, once again, it took only the slightest bit of movement to wake Lance up. “K-keith?” His eyes were only half open and his voice still sounded sleepy.

“Uh. H-hi,” he replied.

“What time is it….” Lance mumbled as he rubbed his eyes.

Keith glanced at his clock again. “4:13AM.”

“Why are you awake at 4AM…” He looked up at Keith, who turned his face to the side quickly. Not quick enough. “Were you crying?”

Keith turned to his side, back facing Lance. “N-no.” Voice crack. “ _ Maybe. _ ”

“Hey…” Lance said softly, wrapping an arm around Keith’s waist. “We can talk about it. If you want to.”

“Uh.” Keith sighed, but nodded. “I’m… I’m sorry for how I acted yesterday evening. I shouldn’t have yelled like that. Especially not after what happened.”

“A lot happened, though. It’s….”

“You don’t have to tell me it’s okay, Lance. I know that it’s not,” Keith said - a little too loud, maybe. “What happened to you last night… I just fought with Shiro, but even that was my own fault. I yelled at him. And then I yelled at you. I’m sorry. I fucked up.”

“Yeah… You kinda did,” Lance replied, pulling Keith closer. “But we can fix it. You can go talk to Shiro tomorrow. And we’re talking right now.” Keith nodded. “Did things go… Too fast yesterday?” Lance continued.

“Maybe, yeah.”

“We can take it slower if you want to. We don’t immediately have to like, uh, start dating. If you’re not sure if you like me.”

“No-” Keith turned to his other side. He got up a little, this time resting on his elbow so he could look at Lance. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

Lance frowned. “Then what-”

“Like I said - I do like you, Lance.” Keith looked away. “But I meant that a lot happened in one night. That’s probably why I reacted that way. It's not an excuse, but…”

“I get what you mean. It’s true that a lot went down, I can’t blame you for reacting that way. I think I just really needed you with me, because I was so scared... And that’s why I went that fast. I mean, of course I do also like you, I… I didn’t just need anyone. I just wanted you.” Keith looked back at Lance. He was smiling softly, looking right back at Keith, as he reached a hand out to touch his cheek.

“I think I’m the one who went too fast first, though. I shouldn’t just have kissed you like that.”

“And I shouldn’t have ran away either. Maybe if I hadn’t, none of this stuff with Ian would’ve happened…” Lance looked away and paused, but then back at Keith again. “It was such a relief to hear your voice while he was attacking me. I don't know what I did to deserve you being there at just the right time, but... Thanks for saving me, I guess.”

“You guess?” Keith smirked.

“Shut up,” Lance grinned. He pulled Keith’s face closer to his and kissed him, and for the first time this night Keith felt  _ right _ . He was hesitating before, and although he liked Lance it had felt like something was missing. Just ‘liking’ him wasn’t enough. The 4AM conversation had filled replaced that hesitation with certainty - the certainty that Lance was just what he wanted. Honesty but genuineness, the ability to talk some sense into Keith when both of their heads were a mess. He could be soft and caring - both in terms of his words and how gentle his hands were placed on Keith’s cheeks. But Keith also liked how he was straight to the point, like when he had admitted that Keith had indeed fucked up, and now, when he pulled Keith right on top of him. It was however followed by an immediate ‘ow’ from Lance. Keith pulled away. “You okay?” he asked.

“Y-yeah. Just a bruise, probably.”

“Should I get off-”

“No,” Lance replied as he pulled Keith closer again.

They let go eventually, smiles on their faces as Keith rolled to the side. Lance put his head on Keith’s chest. “I guess we should go to sl-…”

“Wait,” Keith interrupted. “Um… Does this mean we’re like, dating now?”

“Obviously, Kogane,” Lance mumbled. He pressed another kiss to Keith’s lips, then let his head hit the pillow. “Goodnight,” Lance mumbled.

“Goodnight, Lance.” With his arms wrapped around Lance and the issue at previously hand resolved, Keith drifted off to sleep in no time.

 

They didn’t even bother to wake up in time for class and slept in. The clock showed 10:41AM when Keith finally opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Lance looking at him with a soft smile, blue eyes still a bit sleepy, surrounded by a dark purple bruise. “Morning,” Keith muttered. He pressed a kiss to Lance’s forehead and got out of bed.

“Looks like you’re a morning person, huh,” Lance mumbled as he pulled the sheets up to his chin.

“Looks like you’re not,” Keith replied. “Want some breakfast? I’ve got, uhhh... Lion cereal? And milk, hopefully.”

“Mmmh. That’s fine.”

Keith made them two bowls of cereal, which they ate quietly on Keith’s bed. Lance finished eating first and tried getting up to put the bowl away, but his face quickly took a pained expression. The bowl fell to the floor as he grabbed for his stomach. There was some dried blood on there too - they hadn’t even noticed it last night.

“Hold on, I’ll go put it away,” Keith replied as he finished the last of his cereal as well, then got up to bring the bowls away. He picked the first aid box out of the closet again before walking back to Lance. “Let me see,” Keith mumbled.

“Are you asking me to take off my shirt?” Lance grinned, a flirty smirk on his face through the pained expression.

“You are  _ unbelievable _ , Lance,” Keith replied, a slight blush spreading across his cheek. The blush intensified as Lance carefully took the shirt off, which clearly hurt as well. Lance had a nice body - he clearly worked out from time to time, according to the muscles - but  _ that wasn’t what Keith should be paying attention to right now _ . There were a couple small bruises over his hips and arms, but he had a big one on his abdomen. His sides seemed to be grazed from the wall he was standing against when Keith found him - that must’ve been what caused the blood on his shirt. There was some dried blood left around it that Keith carefully cleaned up. “Anything on your back or arms?” Keith asked.

“My back does kinda hurt but I think it’s just more bruises…” Lance turned around so Keith could see.

“Yeah, just bruises,” Keith confirmed. “Anything else that hurts? You don’t think you broke anything?”

“My hands hurt from trying to punch him, but I don’t think it’s broken. My body’s definitely gonna be sore for a few days, though.” Lance shuffled back against the bed’s headboard. Keith put the box away, then sat down next to him. Lance grabbed his hands and looked at him. “Thanks for taking care of me, Keith. I… I haven’t felt like someone cared about me this much in a very long time.”

Keith just smiled and squeezed Lance’s hands back, unsure of what to reply. A reply didn’t seem needed when Lance slowly sat down in Keith’s lap and kissed him. Keith’s hands ran over Lance’s back - not very strategically, as Keith forgot about the bruises there. Lance whimpered. “Sorry,” Keith mumbled.

“Don’t worry,” Lance whispered back. Keith’s hands moved to Lance’s neck instead, a safer place without any bruises. They slowly travelled into Lance’s hair as the kiss deepened, while Lance’s hands ran to the hem of Keith’s shirt. Keith smirked into the kiss and reached for Lance’s hands on his back, slowly guiding them up, then allowing Lance to pull the shirt over his head. Lance leaned in again, slowly leaving a trail of kisses from Keith’s mouth to his neck.

And then the moment ended when someone knocked on their door “Who the f-” Keith mumbled.

“H-hey, uh, Keith? It’s Hunk and, uh… We didn’t see Lance yesterday evening, and you two didn’t show up to class either, so we were wondering if he was here?”

“N-no!” Lance yelled back. 

Keith stared at Lance with a horrified look. Lance frowned, realised what he had done, and stared back at Keith with an even more horrified look. Pidge seemed to be behind the door as well, as her laugh echoed through the hallway. “You owe me a milkshake, Hunk!” she yelled.

Lance rolled off Keith’s lap and hastily searched for his shirt; Keith picked his own shirt off the bed and put it on. “Can I open the door?” he whispered to Lance. Lance nodded, a huge red flush across his face, his hair messed up from Keith’s hands. Keith didn’t doubt that he looked just the same. “ _ Act normal, _ ” Keith hissed. 

“We’re gonna have to tell them...” Lance whispered back.

“I know, okay!”

“I’ll tell them about Ian first and then we can tell them about us.”

Keith nodded. He walked up to the door and opened it just a crack. “H-hey, guys?” he stuttered. Hunk looked embarrassed while Pidge couldn’t hide her amusement. “Um, yeah, Lance is here, but…” He looked back at Lance; he was biting his lips and fidgeting with the sheets. Pidge’s expression changed to worried - she could probably tell something was up. Keith didn’t finish his sentence and just opened the door to let the two in.

Hunk’s first reaction was worry; Pidge’s first reaction was, “What happened to your face?”

“Wow, thanks for the empathy, Pidge,” Lance replied sarcastically.   
“For real though, is everything okay, Lance?” Hunk asked.

“Well, uh,” Lance started, biting his nails and shaking his leg nervously. “Do you guys remember Ian? From senior year?”

Pidge and Hunk nodded. “Yeah, so it was, uh, him that did this…” - Lance pointed at his face - “to me.”

“What was Ian doing here? I thought he lived in, what, Florida or something?” Pidge asked. 

“And why was he punching you?” Hunk added.

“He was in the area, and, uh…” Keith noticed Lance’s nervosity getting worse; he sat down next to him on the bed and grabbed his hand. Lance bit his lip, but continued. “We… We used to date, just a little while before I met you guys. We broke up because I didn’t want anyone to find out, b-but… Now he was back here and he wanted to meet up again, to tell me he missed me and to ask if I wanted to try things again. I said no and he punched me, basically.” Pidge and Hunk didn’t seem to know how to respond; they stayed quiet, Pidge with her eyebrows raised worriedly, Hunk with his hands covering his face.

“I need to tell you guys the reason why I said no as well,” Lance added, glancing to Keith, then back at the two others. “Keith and I are dating. I’m… I’m bisexual.”

Pidge clapped her hands together in her lap. “You know, it was about time.”

“Pidge!” Hunk warned her.

“What?” Pidge grinned. “I thought it was pretty obvious from the way they’ve been looking at eachother.” Hunk shook his head and Keith smiled.  _ Had he really been looking at Lance like that?  _ And more importantly, had Lance been looking at him like that too? Had he just not noticed? Not that it mattered anymore. Keith looked over at Lance; he had a surprised look on his face.

“So you guys, uh, don’t hate me?” he muttered.

Pidge frowned. “No, of course not? Why would we…?”

Lance shrugged. “My friends in middle school would _hate_ me for it.”

“Lance,” Hunk said - total seriousness. “We’re not like that. We’ll support you no matter what, so now we’re here to support you and Keith.”

Lance looked up at them with a smile. Pidge nodded, but stared at her lap nervously. “Actually, I’ve got something to tell you all as well,” she said. “I’m non-binary, so… I think I’d prefer to use they/them pronouns? If that’s okay with you all?”

They nodded. “And we support you too,” Hunk replied, putting a hand on Pidge’s shoulder. He suddenly noticed everyone staring at him in anticipation. “Uh… I thought we all knew I was pansexual? No? Alright, just putting that out here then.”

“Wow. Looks like we really do travel in packs,” Pidge remarked excitedly.

Lance threw his arms around Keith and smiled. “This went so much better than I thought it’d go,” he whispered. Keith kissed the top of his head - he really felt happy for Lance.

“I’d say we go drink a coffee to you two?” Hunk suggested.

Keith frowned. “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. Shiro and I kind of… Got in a fight yesterday.”

“Even more reason to go there, then,” Hunk added. 

“That’s a bad idea-” Keith tried to argue, but to no avail.

“To my van!” Hunk interrupted. Everyone cheered, ready to head out the door. 

“Guys,  _ quiet _ !” Keith yelled. The cheering stopped and they looked at Keith, surprised by the sudden raise in his voice. “I need to talk to Shiro alone. You guys can stay here or go drink a milkshake or something, but please let me go to the coffee shop alone.”

Lance was the first to nod. He walked up to Keith and hugged him. “You’re right. This really is something you should do alone.” He kissed Keith, then turned back around to the others. “Sooo… Milkshake it is?” 

 

Keith cursed when he noticed how busy the coffee shop was. No way that Shiro would have time to talk to him right now. Patience wasn’t something Keith was very good at, but for now, he’d have to wait.

Matt was at the register, Allura and Shiro were making drinks. Shiro noticed him coming in, but didn’t say anything. Keith ordered his drink and sat down at the empty table closest to where Shiro was working.

Shiro brought his coffee a few minutes later with a generic “here you go, enjoy” as if nothing had happened. “Seriously, Shiro? Can’t we-”

“I’m working, Keith,” Shiro replied. Keith sighed and stirred in his coffee.  _ Patience _ . 

A coffee and a hot chocolate later (that Shiro brought him with the same distant-friendly attitude), the store calmed down again. Shiro was washing mugs behind the counter, so now seemed like an appropriate moment to walk up to him. “Look, can we talk now?” Keith mumbled.

“I’m still working,” Shiro replied with a smirk on his face. “Besides, I told you: don’t storm back here when you’re alone.”

“I’m not-” Keith started, but he interrupted himself. Maybe starting this conversation off with the news that he was dating Lance now wasn’t ideal: this was about Shiro and Keith. “Look, I’m sorry for how I acted yesterday, okay? A lot happened, and I was just so on edge, and… I really shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I know I went too far.” Shiro kept his eyes on the mug he was cleaning. Keith sighed. “This isn’t our first fight-”

“ _ Definetely _ not,” Shiro interrupted.

“-but we’ve always made it up, right?” 

“I guess.”

“I really am sorry.” Keith reached his arm over the counter. “But… Brothers again?”

Shiro finally put the mug down and grabbed Keith’s hand. “Yeah, always,” Shiro replied. He picked up another mug. “I just gotta finish doing these dishes, but my shift is almost over, in case you wanna go get a drink together. We could go for milkshakes, Adam’s working.”

“Oh, uh…” Keith stammered. “Lance is there with Hunk and Pidge, and…”

“Right. You didn’t go talk to him?”

“I… I did actually.” Keith bit his thumb.

“And how did it go?”

“Well, uh, w-we’re kind of dating right now?”

Shiro almost dropped the mug he was drying. “Kind of? You’re gonna have to explain now, Keith.”

Keith looked around the coffee shop nervously. There were two teenage boys in the corner discussing Fortnite, someone else was studying, and an elderly couple was chatting not too far away from them. “Can I explain while we go somewhere else?” Keith mumbled.

Shiro nodded. “Just these three mugs, and then you can tell me everything on the car ride to the milkshake parlor.”

 

It took Keith the entire car ride and an extra 10 minutes to finish his story - from Keith walking into Lance crying, to them talking then dancing, to the kiss. From Keith walking into Lance getting beat up, to them kissing again, fighting, but making up at 4AM, and eventually to the moment where they told Pidge and Hunk. Keith ended his story just before they stepped into the milkshake parlor. Lance’s face lit up when his eyes met Keith’s and it made Keith’s heart drop.

“You all good again?” Hunk asked. Keith nodded as he shuffled into the booth next to Lance; Lance pressed a quick kiss to his cheek and rested his hand on Keith’s leg. Adam arrived at their table too; he greeted Shiro with a sneaky kiss. Shiro whispered something in his ear, to which Adam looked at Keith and Lance in surprise. “Looks like my extra large strawberry milkshake plan worked!” he grinned. “Another one of those for you two? Two straws?”

“Yes please!” Lance immediately replied. “And this time  _ I _ get the last sip!” he added as he turned to Keith.

“Only if I get the strawberry.” Keith smirked. He looked around: Shiro had followed Adam and was leaning over the counter to talk to him, while Pidge and Hunk seemed to be busy in conversation as well. Lance leaned over to Keith. “It feels like so long ago since we shared our previous double strawberry milkshake, doesn’t it?” he asked.

Keith grinned. “It really does.” 

“I kinda started to crush on you after that, not gonna lie,” Lance mumbled amusedly.

Keith’s mouth almost fell open. “Are you kidding me-”

“What?”

“Me too, you idiot!” Keith sighed. “You kept flirting with other girls and I kept losing hope.”

“I was trying to convince myself I  _ didn’t  _ have a crush on you, so give me a break, Kogane,” Lance replied. Keith smiled and stared out of the window, shaking his head.

“And you know when we went laser tagging?” Lance started again. “I wanted to get you into a corner and kiss you-”

“And then shoot me?”

“Yeah. Oh god,” Lance replied, covering his face with his hands. “We’re both idiots, aren’t we?”

“Mmhm, we are,” Keith mumbled as he leaned in to kiss Lance again. He couldn’t believe all his nights filled with anxiety related to Lance had been pretty much useless. At least there would hopefully be none of those anymore.

“If I may interrupt-” they suddenly heard. “-strawberry milkshake for two?” Adam winked and put the milkshake in front of them.

“Oh-”

“Yes, thank you, Adam!” Keith blurted out.

“Thank you!” Lance yelled as well. Adam grinned and shook his head as he turned around. “Buen apetito,” Lance mumbled as he sipped from the straw.

“Since when do you speak Spanish?” Keith asked before taking a sip too.

“I’m from Cuba, Keith,” Lance sighed. “And, besides... I thought it’d sound hot.”

“Hmmm, you sure?” Keith teased back while picking the strawberry off the tower of whipped cream. Lance raised his eyebrows, smirked and leaned towards Keith - before he knew what was going on, Lance had stolen the strawberry out of his hand with his mouth. “You-”   


“Were  _ you  _ sure about wanting that strawberry?” Lance teased. Keith stared at him, defeated.

“I said I was gonna take the strawberry, and then you got the last sip-”

“Guys - you have been dating for less than a day and already sound like an old married couple,” Hunk chortled, while Pidge couldn’t hold their laughter anymore. “Maybe you guys just need to finish your milkshakes and get a room,” they added.

Lance rolled his eyes. “You guys are just jealous that I-”

“I’m not even gonna let you finish that, Lance,” Pidge declared. 

 

***

 

Shiro gave Keith and Lance a ride to the dorms, while Pidge and Hunk took the van. Keith and Lance spent what was left of the afternoon in Keith’s dorm. With Shiro next to them Keith swore they were gonna do some studying, but everyone knew it was a lie and instead of a book, it was Lance who ended up on Keith’s lap.

Goung out for dinner for their one-day anniversary sounded like a romantic idea (“You know an anniversary is a year right, Lance?” “Shut up, Pidge.”), but with Lance’s black eye they figured staying in with pizzas was a better idea than a nice restaurant. It was romantic in it’s own way.

Just like the books, the pizza boxes ended up on the floor quickly after they finished eating them. 

“Can I sleep here again?” Lance asked, pulling away from their kiss for a moment.

“Obviously,” Keith replied as he rolled over carefully so that he was leaning over Lance. “You can stay in my dorm, if you want to.”

“Like, always?”

“I have room for two.”

“Absolutely,” Lance answered and smiled brightly before he pulled Keith down again to kiss him.   
Keith could get used to this.

 

***

 

Months passed - university, and life in in general were still hard. The 2nd exam period of the year was coming up - but there was hope. Light at the end of the tunnel, an extra sunray brightening up the day. Lance’s smile when Keith brought him breakfast, or when he talked about his family - his eyes lit up, his dimples appeared when he smiled wide like that. Seeing Lance wake up next to him, the sun falling on his tan skin, bright blue eyes, and brown hair. Lance’s cuddles, Lance’s kisses, Lance’s soft hands softly running across his bare back. His patience when Keith needed calculus help, his sincere smile when Keith explained physics to him. A coffee from the coffee shop, and maybe even another milkshake date after class.   
Those little things were all it took for Keith to realize that someday, as long as Lance was at his side, everything would be easier.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this for 10 months and now it's here!  
> In case anyone is interested, here is a playlist of some songs I listened to while writing, or just some songs that I thought fit the fic: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6WcunviSXzVdqMURcvEulb


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